


Jusqu'à Demain

by viatorix



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Historical RPF, Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: AU, Angst, Death, F/M, Groundhog Day, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slow Burn, So much death, Suicide, and fluff, graphic depictions of gore, it does get dark but it does also get lighter as we go along, there is some happiness though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:00:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 49,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6578548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viatorix/pseuds/viatorix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyday John Laurens wakes up, and everyday it is the 28th of June, 1778.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

A sudden, lurching stomach was never a good thing to have when one is galloping toward the enemy. It is almost always followed by the earth tilting the wrong way and the muddy ground coming up to meet one at an alarming rate. The shrieking scream of a man’s horse is also a bad sign; something best to be avoided if one wants to remain saddled. Unfortunately for John Laurens, everything seemed to go wrong at exactly the same time.

His bay mare recoiled as she took a bullet to the neck, and the beast threw herself onto her hind legs. John gripped his thighs tight to her belly. In the frantic few seconds he had, he scanned the battlefield for the shooter to no avail. Cannon smoke had shrouded the field in a hazy white. Men looked more like spectres as they dashed through the fog, the shouts of command barely audible over the haunting cries that came from all directions. John desperately tried to slip his left foot from the stirrup but it caught in the leather as it twisted. With another shriek, his desperate seconds were gone as his mare’s legs gave out from under her and she toppled.

The unexpected blackness caught John by surprise. His vision came slowly back; spotted at first, then ill-defined like a poorly made lens. White. Everything was white and grey. No, that was the overcast sky. What had happened? He had fallen and then…? It was hard to concentrate over the ringing in his ears. All other sounds were muted and muddled, no more than vague suggestions of booming artillery and human cries. When John tried to take a sharp breath, he let out a cry of his own.

Pain, thick and searing bit into his side. He coughed, sending another wave of agony down his chest. A broken rib? He poked tenderly with weak fingers at his muddy uniform. Yet another whip of pain told him it was probably more than one. John swore and clenched his eyes shut. His tongue tasted like paper in his mouth Why was it so hard to think? He felt as if he were wading through a river that was trying its utmost to pull him under. He fought to keep himself above water. Small breaths, taken through the nose. In and out. _In and out._

He was rewarded with more pain. His head was clearer, but pinpricks nipped at his skull. John groaned, drunkenly threading his fingers through the hair at his temple. They came away wet and he swore again, wiping his brow with the back of his hand. As much as he wished to fight on, there was no having it. He had to get up and return behind Continental lines. Crawl, if need be. Right now he was too exposed, too much in the open, and too easily could he be picked off with a bayonet. Laurens just knew he wouldn’t hear the end of it from Hamilton. Shot off his horse before he could even fire? It was embarrassing to say the least.

Speaking of which, where had his poor mare landed? It was a shame; the girl had been sent up to him from Mepkin. A finely muscled creature, and difficult to spook even as gunfire cracked around her. Now Josephine had died taking a bullet for him. An honest fate for a loyal horse.

John attempted to shift his left leg and met resistance. Hot, _visceral_ resistance. He bit off the confused yelp that wrestled in his throat, breathing heavily and painfully as he tried to raise himself onto his hands. His mare, it seemed, had fallen directly on him, crushing his lower left half. The animal herself was silent in a way only the dead could achieve; a glazed eye reflecting the smoke that lazily drifted above them.

 _Oh God._ John tried to shift himself again and was met with the doubled agony of his leg and the resulting sear in his side from a sharp intake of breath. How had this happened? He’d only fallen from his horse. Many a man had been turned from their saddles with barely an injury. Looking down, Laurens couldn’t even call himself to anger as horror filled his gut instead. His left foot – from what he could see of it – was facing the entirely wrong way. The heel of his muddy boot had fully twisted around and now pointed toward the sky. The gruesome sight was enough to make him gag.

How was he to get away now? His other foot still hung limply in its stirrup, undamaged but hardly useful. Trying to twist it out would simply add more agony to that which had now set his whole body ablaze.

John swung his head out to the battlefield. He could hardly tell which men belonged to which side any more than when he had fallen. His immediate vicinity was empty of the noticeable living. He could pick out a few blue uniformed bodies scattered about the mud, but they were as silent as his mare. The cannon smoke had only gotten thicker as he squinted to his horizons on either side. Which army was his? It was so difficult to tell.

He didn’t dare call out. Drawing attention to the wrong man could spell his end. Not that there was enough breath in his lungs to do so anyway. Desperation crawled under his skin like buzzing insects. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t wait. _By God, what am I going to do?_ The thought stuck fast as he grit his teeth.

What would his father say if he could see him? An unfired gun thrown out of reach, and his broken son crushed under the horse Henry had given him. He might die. No, he probably _would_ die. Where was the honour in this death? Henry Laurens’ eldest son had died a fool that had charged off alone into the fray in a vain pursuit of glory. John could almost feel the phantom disappointment.

And what of Martha? What of the child? The widow and the daughter of a man who felt nothing but guilt when he thought of them. And Alexander, _his dear Hamilton._ What would he think of Laurens? They had promised to drink to victory together after the battle. He pictured Hamilton’s bright eyes and smug smile as he assured John that glory today would be his. A smile that had only grown as Laurens had scoffed and pushed at his shoulder. Well. Perhaps glory _would_ be his. But Alexander may have to drink alone tonight.

His heart ached as he laid himself flat and stared at the sky, the desperation quickly and hopelessly leaking from him like water. A part of John always knew he would die in battle. In fact he had wanted it. But not like this. There were still things he wanted to do. His plan for the black battalion, for one. And then there were still things he wanted to _say_ , most of them to Alexander. He wanted to tell Hamilton how much he admired him, how dear of a friend he thought him. He wanted to sit on a hillside and tell the man everything he had kept from him – his family, his hopes, his _wife._

But most of all, John didn’t want to say anything at all. He wanted to listen to Alexander ramble about the law, about the future, about _anything_ so long as his warm, animated voice filled John’s silence. He wanted to wrap himself up in the ambiance that was Alexander, and watch the way the light reflected off the rich auburn strands of his hair. How cruel that all Laurens had now were last minute memories.

More gunshots cracked somewhere to his right. Laurens ignored them in favour of the sky. Some of the smoke had cleared a bit and the clouds had parted enough that patches of blue could be seen peeking through. There was nothing to be done. Laurens resigned himself to his fate, whatever that proved to be. The muddy ground was uncomfortable, but his time in the army had made him grow used to disagreeable situations. At least his stillness had caused the pain to lessen.

A heavy thump of boots drew his attention from the bird that keened overhead. Resigned as he was, John couldn’t help but tense, readying himself for the man that came closer. The boots stopped here and there, followed by a shuffle of fabric and the wet slide of flesh being pierced. _Oh._ He wanted to laugh. The bodies around him were Continental men, there was no doubt who those boots belonged to. And John could do nothing. Perhaps the man would see his officer epaulets and send out a call to take him captive. Perhaps he wouldn’t bother and just kill him. John wasn’t sure what would be worse.

A face entered his view. It was a boy, no more than seventeen, and evidently startled that Laurens was still breathing. He flapped his mouth like a fish, before looking somewhere behind him, unsure of what to do. His red coat looked barely worn. The stitching was still in place, as was the buttons. His rifle straps hadn’t a nick to be seen. The boy stood there for a good minute, still floundering, and frantically searching for orders that would not come.

“Boy,” Laurens said, trying to gain his attention. Or he would have, if the sound that came out of his mouth had been anything more than a pathetic croak.

It worked nonetheless. The boy jumped in fright, clutching his rifle in a white-knuckled grip close to his chest. Laurens could hear his breathing. The boy was frightened. Laurens found he wasn’t feeling too differently.

They stared at one another, each unsure of what to do next until a cannon boomed beyond. The boy looked to his rifle and pursed his lips. _No. Don’t. Please don’t._

“I’m sorry,” he said as he pointed the bayonet at John’s chest. His accent was familiar.

Not an Englishman’s. The boy was a loyalist.

Laurens opened his mouth to speak.

Pain, thin and sharp, erupted in his chest as the blade slid home. _No!_ It couldn’t end like this. The pain faded quickly, but as the world tunnelled black, so did everything else. Laurens had to fight. If he could just stay awake then he would be fine.

_I’m so sorry, Alexander._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although I will do my best to stick close to historical accuracy, this fic will take liberties. Especially in the depictions of the battle of Monmouth, so if you know exactly how that battle went and go what??? I'm warning you now. Also, hopefully, things that don't seem to make sense early on, will make sense as the story progresses (but wish me luck).


	2. Chapter 2

 

\--Loop 1--

 

If this was death, then it felt suspiciously like the bunk in his tent.

So he had survived the boy and his rifle. They must have found him bleeding out, half-dead in the mud, and had brought him back to mend. What a sight that must have been.

Laurens took stock of himself. A rough, woollen blanket was irritating the back of his neck, but he could feel no evidence of his doubtlessly numerous injuries as he gently shuffled in the bunk. Unless he had taken enough laudanum to down an ox, he should surely feel some sort of pain in his ribs, aside from the familiar muscular ache that seemed to dog Laurens with every step nowadays. Yet he didn’t feel anything. Not when he breathed deep, nor when he lightly lifted his left leg and rotated the joint of his foot. Nothing. The stretch was pleasant enough though.

How very strange.

 Laurens gingerly opened his eyes at the sound of rustling cloth. He was greeted with the sight of Alexander; his hair free-flowing about his shoulders, and his hands stuffing his shirt into his breeches. The gaiters over his shoes and stockings were only half buttoned, and a blue ribbon hung from his mouth between clenched teeth. Laurens was hit with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu.

When Hamilton caught him staring, he grinned, hastily gathering his hair to the nape of his neck and expertly tying it off in smooth loops.

“Deciding to sleep in on a day like this Laurens? That’s unlike you,” he said as he dropped down onto the mess of blankets gathered on the opposite bunk and begun to quickly finish buttoning his gaiters.

Laurens pushed himself up onto his elbows, now thoroughly confused. “A day like this?”

Alexander raised a brow and quirked his lips like _Laurens’_ question was odd. “Well the British haven’t amassed in Monmouth for a spot of tea, Laurens. Likewise our troops should be ready and willing to head to the field.” he paused. “Or have you forgotten that we plan to do battle today?”

Battle? But just yesterday there had been a battle. To leap into the fray again so soon would be lunacy. What was General Washington thinking? Laurens pulled himself into a sitting position (surprisingly easily) and watched as Alexander leaned over to the desk chair to grab his waistcoat. The other man had stated it like it was obvious. Shouldn’t Alexander be just as suspicious? Just as tired? (Was Laurens actually tired? He didn’t feel so. No more than he was injured. Very strange)

He scrubbed his face. “Hamilton, what is the date today?”

Alexander stood, turning his back to Laurens as he scanned the paper strewn desk for something, not bothering to look over his shoulder as he answered. “The twenty-eighth of June. Why?”

Laurens froze. But _yesterday_ had been the twenty-eighth of June, he was sure of it. He knew it because yesterday Gibbs had complained to him, on the ride to the field, of going into battle on his uncle’s birthday. “Are you sure?”

“ _Where is that damn necktie?_ Yes, John, I’m sure. Ah!” Hamilton swept around and snatched the strip of cloth hanging over the case at the foot of his bunk. He turned to gaze at Laurens, squinting. “What’s gotten into you? Did you drink last night?”

“What? No, of course not.” At least Laurens didn’t think he did. Yet with his memory this seemingly jumbled, he very well could have done. “I’m fine,” he insisted at Alexander’s incredulous look.

Perhaps what he thought was yesterday was simply a dream. He did still feel groggy, and his forehead was damp with sweat as he ran a hand over his face again. Laurens grimaced. It wouldn’t be the first time he had dreamed of dying on a muddy battlefield.

“As you will,” Hamilton said, threading an arm through his coat. “I have to—“

“—go see His Excellency about his missive, yes I know,” Laurens finished for him coolly. Just a dream. He shouldn’t let it bother him. He had a battle to prepare for, and, if he remembered correctly, there was a letter he had yet to write in case the worst happened. He looked up when he felt the weight of Hamilton’s quizzical stare. “What?”

“How did you know I received a missive? It came when you were sleeping,” he asked with a wary chuckle. “Or were you only pretending to sleep?”

“Well, no I—“ how _did_ Laurens know? The answer appeared obvious. He knew because Alexander had told him. Yesterday. But that was in the dream.

Wasn’t it?  

“Well, what else would make you dress so quickly?”

Alexander didn’t look pleased at the insinuation, but conceded his point with a grunt. Picking up some of the letters on the writing desk, he stuffed them in his coat before heading to the canvas flap.

Hamilton paused. He looked back at Laurens, and opened his mouth to say something, but after a moment the man seemed to think the better of it. With a shake of his head and a small hum, he left Laurens alone to dress in the quiet of the tent.

\--

Laurens didn’t feel any better as the morning wore on.

He finished his letter in a hurry and tucked it amongst the others he had written the previous night, before trudging through the mobilizing camp for a last minute meeting at headquarters.

The sense of déjà vu only grew as he passed the men. Men who powdered and flipped their ash cakes in a familiar manner. Men who laughed at a bawdy joke he was sure he had heard before. A washer woman almost barrelled into him, mumbling the same apologies, her face the same beet red. If he turned his head to the right as he crossed the worn track surrounding the supply tent, he would see a grenadier spit out chewed tobacco. If he looked up ahead to the courthouse, he would see a young messenger pause at the door to tuck a scrap of paper into his bag, and who would then hop down the rest of the stairs as he headed off.

No matter how much he tried to push it away, the whole thing made John uneasy.

Most of Washington’s aides were assembled at their respective posts when he entered the room, which could rather more practically be called a small hall. Tilghman, Gibbs and the fresh-faced McHenry were each scratching last minute letters or missives bound for the other parts of the army. General Washington’s desk was bereft of its master, but his senior aide was perched on its side, speaking in soft tones to the much taller, lanky Frenchman before him. Hamilton provided Laurens with an easy smile when he saw him approach, any worry he may have had at unusual behaviour earlier was forgotten.

It was Lafayette that spoke first, as expected; his throaty accent light, pleasant, and filled with his usual brand of cheerfulness.

“Good morning, my friend! Hamilton and I were just speaking of General Lee and the plan in the coming battle.”

Alexander bobbed his head. _He doesn’t like it._ “I don’t like it,” the smaller man acquiesced. “Lee is troublesome, without a doubt. And yet, His Excellency has chosen to trust the General, so I suppose we haven’t much choice.”

 _I don’t like it either, but I’m sure it will be fine._ He wanted to say it. Laurens should say it. Yet his mind drifted back to his dream, and the feeling of being broken and alone under his dead mare. Why had he been so alone? In the dream he had been just ahead of the rest of Lee’s troops. _The mind doesn’t always supply healthy logic when it comes to dreams, John._

“We should remain vigilant,” he said instead, “and keep an eye on Lee and his orders.”

Hamilton heartily agreed, but Lafayette was more subdued. “I trust our General’s assessment of Lee,” he said, always supportive of Washington’s command and choices. Lafayette’s loyalty was nothing if not endearing.

Hamilton shrugged. “As do we all, my dear fellow.”

\--

His bay mare, very much alive, was nickering softly as Laurens surveyed the marching lines of Continental soldiers. He had given her nose a loving pet when Shrewsbury released her to him, unable to help himself. Dream or not, the thought of losing Josephine like that was distasteful.

He, Hamilton and Lafayette had gone their separate ways after Washington’s address of the officers. Lafayette had his own troops to lead, and Hamilton had chosen to stick close to Washington as the General had set out to arrange his lines. Laurens was to be on the offensive stab with Lee; a position he did not question. If it allowed him both the opportunity to be the first in the fray whilst keeping an eye on Lee, then all the better. It was foolish to be so taken with suspicion, but the nagging at the back of his mind wouldn’t cease.

Laurens picked at his necktie to fan some air onto his increasingly sweaty neck. The heat was stifling, not helped by the blazing sun that had yet to be restrained by cloud cover. He and the other officers were gathered on the slope of a hill, sequestered under the shade of a few sickly looking pines. John watched as Lee conversed with the square faced Major Bradford a few yards away.

The man seemed animated, but nervous. He was constantly scanning the field up to the British camp awaiting just beyond, tapping a finger to his lips and scratching a plump cheek. Laurens shook his head. It wasn’t odd for a man to have nerves before battle, even for an experienced general. He was over thinking this.

A gentle nudge to Josephine’s side and a click of his tongue sent the mare into walk toward Lee. The general acknowledged Laurens with a nod, but continued his conversation. His voice was oddly clipped.

“When in battle, keep moving. Until I give the order. No one else’s. Understand, Major?” Bradford gave a sharp ‘aye, General’ before stirring his horse to move off to the lines forming at the bottom of the slope. Laurens could see the last of the infantry straightening out. It was almost time.

“General Lee,” Laurens called as he sidled up to Lee’s brutish stallion. “If I may, I wish to monitor the forward and second line.”

Lee looked surprised. “I would have expected for you to want to be at the head of the pack, Laurens. In amongst the charge for glory and all that.”

Laurens narrowed his eyes, but kept his face civil. Any other day he would have wanted that exact thing, but today something wasn’t right. He also didn’t appreciate Lee’s underhanded pass at his character.

“I’m sure today will be glorious in every line of the battle, General. I will obtain my fair share of redcoat cockades wherever I am, I do not doubt.” Arrogant, perhaps. But effective.

Lee scratched his cheek again before shrugging a shoulder. “If that is what you wish, my boy. I’m sure the forward and second lines will make use of you.” He pulled at the fabric biting into his jowls. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I must make some last minute preparations.”

“Of course,” Laurens replied, dipping into a bow that caused Josephine to shuffle. “Thank you, General.”

He watched as Lee bounced away after his major, looking unsteady on his horse. If not for the way the man squeezed at the stallion’s middle, he would have tumbled off down the slope.

Laurens sighed. “I hope Washington isn’t wrong about this one.”

There was too much at stake.

\--

The cavalry charged off toward the British line through gunfire and cannon smoke, but Laurens was not amidst them. He kept his rifle loaded and cocked, firing off shots where he could. Josephine was steady as a rock through it all. She hardly hesitated when he pulled her back, wheeling her around to aim another shot, or charging a ways forward as the lines advanced beside him.

John felt alive. Whether it be with his rifle or swiping at the enemy with his rapier, the rush of battle couldn’t compare. The shouts of men only fuelled the feeling. Smoke stung at his eyes but he blinked them clear, unaffected by the haze. This was it. This was glorious battle. Truly something to live and die for.

He swung at a bright red body that wandered to close. The blade bit into the man’s neck, and he was hardly given time to wetly gurgle before Laurens kicked him to the mud. More shouts sounded to the right, sweeping down the Continental line. A single word.

“ _Retreat! Retreat!”_

 _What in the world?_ Laurens swung his mare around and looked to his lines. The second had already turned and was hastily departing to the slope with the rest of the troops. The men of the forward line were having more difficulty. Those that turned their backs were picked off, but those that didn’t stumbled over the fallen bodies of their comrades. Why had a retreat been sounded? He looked down the line again. Laurens hadn’t seen any problems with their press. The gaps had been filled quickly, and if the Continentals had continued, then the British lines would surely have broken. Only General Lee could have given the orders for retreat. What in God’s name was the man doing?

A bullet whistled past his head as John turned to pursue the second line. More followed, flying close to Josephine’s flanks. He pushed her into a gallop, weaving her around the odd body lying face down in the grass. The eerily familiar waft of cannon smoke made the men hard to track, but he caught up to them soon enough, just as they were about to enter the treeline to safety.

“Wait. Stop!” Laurens called. None turned to respond.

Laurens locked his sight onto a lone figure on horseback, turning his beast this way and that, and beckoning the men into retreat. Drawing closer revealed it to be Bradford. The major’s lapel was ripped and he was missing an epaulet but he looked otherwise unharmed. British bullets still flew around them, intensifying as more and more men fled the battlefield.

“ _Major,_ ” Laurens roared over the noise. “ _What is the meaning of this? Why in God’s name are we retreating?”_

Bradford appeared unaffected by Laurens’ rage. His faced was set into a frown, concentrating more on steadying his startled horse than the higher ranking officer addressing him. “I have my orders from General Lee, Lieutenant Colonel. The British will break us, we must retreat and regroup.”

 _Retreat and regroup?_ Laurens wanted to throttle the man, and his damn General. “We _had_ them, Major! There was no need for these orders.” A bullet ripped the wool at his bicep, exposing a raised red line on the skin underneath. Laurens sucked in a breath. They couldn’t keep standing here.

Bradford shook his head. “Fall in line, Lieutenant Colonel,” he called back. “These are our orders. If you take issue, then you may address the General directly.”

Lee would be court martialled for this. This wasn’t the bloody _plan!_ Laurens gathered his reins in his hand. He would take the news to Washington himself then, if—

Laurens choked around the sudden wetness in his throat.

He threw a hand up and clutched savagely at his neck but the skin was suddenly loose and slippery. In front of him, Bradford balked, his astonished face splattered with crimson.

 _Oh God, what happened?_ Laurens tried to work his jaw to say something but it remained lax, unresponsive. _I’ve been shot,_ he realised with horror, _my God,_ _I’ve been shot in the neck._ Panic set in quickly as Laurens tried to stem the blood that poured through his fingers. Why was it so hard? His fingers felt like small, leaden weights. Every fibre of him did. Without his consent, his body curled toward Josephine’s neck.

Darkness was edging at his vision. He was dying. He was dying so quickly. Laurens hadn’t even the time to think of—


	3. Chapter 3

\--Loop 2--

 

Laurens awoke to the sound of rustling cloth.

His eyes shot open, and was greeted with the alarmingly familiar sight of Alexander: gaiters open, ribbon between teeth, and tucking his shirt into the worn breeches that hung on his hips. Laurens felt roiling dread in his gut.

Alexander tilted his head slightly and, taking the ribbon from his teeth to tie off his hair, he grinned when he caught John’s eye. _Please don’t say it._ “Deciding to sleep in on a day like this Laurens? That’s unlike you,” he said, ignoring Laurens’ silent, desperate plea, and dropping to his bunk.

An illness lurched in his throat. _Oh God._ Laurens scrambled out of bed so quickly, his legs gave out and he stumbled into the space between their bunks.

“Laurens? By God. Are you alright?” Alexander suddenly had a hand clutching his shoulder to steady him. Laurens braced one of his own against the frame of Hamilton’s bedding.

“John?” This time Alexander’s voice was smaller, and more unsure than Laurens cared to hear.

A piece of paper had swept to the floor, and was now partially crushed beneath Lauren’s socked foot. He stared at it as he contemplated the inevitable question. He didn’t want to know the answer. He knew the answer.

Laurens forced himself to look up. “What is the date today?”

Alexander frowned at him, brows low and his long nose scrunched in confusion. “John? What are you—“

Laurens tried again, cutting him off, “Alexander, what is the _date_ today?”

“It’s… it’s the twenty-eighth of June. Why? Is that of some vital importance?”

Laurens clenched his eyes shut. It wasn’t a dream. Yesterday had happened. The day before that had happened as well. Only it wasn’t yesterday, was it? It was today. The twenty-eighth of June. _Again._ He had died twice and somehow had woken up like nothing had happened. He had to get out. The air in the tent was suffocating.

Hamilton’s hand was ripped from his shoulder as he charged out into the morning air. It was cool, crisp, even, and promising of a stiflingly hot day. Yet it wasn’t enough to clear the mounting blockage he felt in his chest.

“John? _John!_ Tell me what the hell is going on!” Hamilton clamoured as he followed Laurens out.

Laurens whipped his head around, searching the outside of the tent. His socks would become damp and musty by the dead leaves that littered the ground, but that was hardly important now.

_There._

He lunged for the filled metal pail sitting off to the side. Usually it was used for cleaning off excess mud and gunk, for now it would do nicely to dunk his head into.

\--

Knowing that he wouldn’t get anything out of Laurens soon, Alexander had hurriedly dressed and left for his meeting with Washington, but promised to return as soon as he was able.

The water had helped somewhat, but now his hair felt slightly greasy when he ran a hand through the unbound strands. He hadn’t bothered to change out of the shirt and breeches he had slept in. Nor did he move from his place at the desk to the shaving kit that awaited inside his luggage. It was all too surreal.

There, in the small drawer on his side of the desk were a stack of letters. One to his father, a few others to his siblings, his far away friends, and those that were closer. Even Alexander had one; folded at the bottom of the pile. The only one that remained unwritten was Martha’s. A guilty afterthought that he had languished on until the last minute. All personally detailed by him. All letters to be sent out upon his unfortunate death in battle.

Only Laurens _had_ died. Twice, in fact.

And how does one explain _that?_ Is that what normally happened upon death? Doomed to relive one’s last day on earth again and again? Was this some kind of punishment? God only knew that Laurens hadn’t exactly been the most pious of men. Probably worse than most.

The cruelty of it was that he wasn’t even forced to repeat the same actions. Alexander hadn’t truly wanted to leave him alone. That hadn’t happened before. What was stopping Laurens from walking out of the camp and not looking back? Seemingly nothing. Would the day repeat if he didn’t die, or did it only repeat because he _did_? Perhaps that was an important question to consider.

He had managed to shed his sleeping clothes for a fresh shirt, breeches, and a pair of stockings by the time Hamilton returned, though his hair was still free of its queue and his face lined with stubble. He ran his hand over it, relieving the itching along his jaw and throat. Laurens could still vividly remember what it had felt like to try and hold the shredded skin closed. The memory made him shudder.

Alexander breezed past him to seat himself down on the corner of his bunk closest to the desk. He purposely set his cocked hat beside him, before brushing his fingers through his auburn hair to unstick the strands that had plastered themselves to his forehead in the growing heat.

Not one to stay quiet for long, Alexander was the first to break the silence.

“So… are you going to inform me of the reason for your episode an hour ago? I’ve never known you to act in such a way, my dear boy. I admit it worries me.” He was leaning himself closer, consciously trying to catch Laurens’ eye. Subtlety was never a strong suit of Alexander’s.

How could he explain a situation like this? Hamilton would be immediately taken with incredulous disbelief. Anyone with half a brain would be taken with the same. Laurens wasn’t even fully sure he believed it himself and he had been constantly turning it over in his mind ever since he had woken up. He needed more information about his predicament. Enough at least, to not make him feel like he was barely treading water. Only then would Laurens feel comfortable confessing the full weight of his situation. Perhaps it would end one way or another before he came to understand more.

One could hope.

Instead he turned to what he already knew to be true, as far as his previous experiences in the Battle of Monmouth had gone. Charles Lee was a coward. One that would quit the battlefield at a critical moment and send all of their meticulous planning into ruin before they could even be properly executed. Lee had done it twice before, and Lee would do it again. If Laurens could tell someone, _anyone,_ who would believe him (and both his gut and his heart told him Alexander would) then the battle could be conceivably saved before it was lost. Whether or not his extremely crude plan worked, Laurens had to try.

“Charles Lee is going to call an early retreat on the field today and it is going to cost us the battle.” It wasn’t the answer Alexander was looking for, but hopefully it would be enough to divert his attention away from John’s embarrassing outburst.

“I… _what?”_ Hamilton’s face was dumbstruck when Laurens turned away from his unwritten letter to look at him. “Laurens what is going _on_ with you? First your outburst this morning.” Damn it. “Now you are accusing Lee of _cowar—“_

“I’m not lying, Hamilton.” He punched his index finger into the mess of parchment, “ _This_ is what Lee plans to do. You know his character is entirely suspicious, just as well as I do. You have your doubt, just as _I do._ And I know, with full conviction, that this is what Lee plans.”

Hamilton let out a frustrated growl. “Stop _doing_ that.”

“Doing what?”

“ _Cutting me off,_ damn you!” He sighed and rubbed at the bridge of his large nose (it really was quite prominent). “Additionally, I didn’t say you were _lying_ , I said you were _accusing_. Which you are, mind. You’re right, I am suspicious of Lee. I don’t like him in the least. But what evidence do you have for this sudden accusation, Laurens? You cannot just accuse a _general_ on mere suspicion.”

It wasn’t mere suspicion, but that wouldn’t help his argument. Who else? Who could share the blame in this? There possibly a few of Lee’s aides that would know, but Laurens couldn’t remember their names for the life of him. And there was Bradford. Major Bradford, who had appeared far too nonchalant with the orders to retreat.

“No, but I could accuse a major.”

At Alexander’s confused look, he elaborated. “Major Bradford knows of Lee’s plans. He would carry them out without hesitation. If we could somehow sequester him away before the battle and question him, he could reveal everything.”

“Question him how? Beat him? Laurens,” he said, exasperated, “not only is the battle in a few hours, we would have to get Washington’s permission. To which, I immediately foresee him asking: Lieutenant Colonel Laurens, _what evidence do you have?”_

He was right, of course. But that didn’t make Laurens not want to slam his hand to the desk in frustration any less. He had nothing. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps there _had_ been a viable reason to retreat and Laurens just hadn’t seen it. And yet, everything in his body insisted _no, it was Lee. Lee had no justification for retreat._

“Alexander, my dear boy, I know this to be true,” he said sourly. “Trust me. Please.”

The smaller man groaned. “I do, John,” he insisted. “As wild as this accusation is, in what is shaping up to be an equally wild day - and it isn’t even noon yet - part of me wholeheartedly believes you. Lee is a scoundrel, but it is not _me_ that you have to convince of this. It’s Washington.”

“But you will back me up in this.”

Alexander grew quiet for a beat before answering. “Yes, Laurens. Against my better judgment, and yours, I will be by your side. But… don’t be surprised if Washington does not take your cause up so heartedly.”

He wrinkled his nose.

“Also, you should shave before we leave.”

\--

Hamilton was right, once again. General Washington hadn’t yet heard his plan for Bradford before he rejected the allegation outright. Laurens and Hamilton had even received a warning of rebuke for the suggestion.

There was nothing for it. His disappointment and frustration was palatable enough that Laurens didn’t raise a fuss against Hamilton’s proposition that he and Laurens stay with Washington, rather than Laurens being regaled to Lee’s charge for a third time. A good idea, because Laurens wasn’t sure he’d stop himself from making good on his wish to throttle the general this time around.

Alexander kept turning to glance at him as they rode out, but Laurens remained straight ahead. Eventually the other man gave up with a small sigh.

If he looked out to the field, and past a dense patch of forest, Laurens could see Lee’s lines starting to form. The distant shouts of command were swept over by the breeze that made the trees waver like swaths of kelp under the sea. Somewhere on that slope, under some pathetic looking pines was Lee; scheming with his cohorts to betray them all.

Far ahead of them, hints of red began to emerge from the treeline.

“We shall set ourselves here, and move forward as the battle progresses.” Washington’s rich baritone broke Laurens from his brooding. “General Lee should be positioning his stab any moment now.”

This was going to end in disaster.

\--

True to his word, Washington set the troops into motion as the British began to march to meet them. Beside Laurens, Hamilton loaded his rifle with powder as they rode along, steering Peacock with his legs while he pushed the paper packet and ball to the base of the barrel.

“Good luck, Laurens,” he said, grinning and flicking the flintlock into place. “We’ll count our cockades together upon victory.”

 _No we won’t._ But Laurens only smiled in return and unstrapped his rifle. His smile seemed to reassure Alexander however, and the man gave him another one: smaller, softer, absent of bravado, and meant only between dear friends. Alexander probably didn’t know what to think of Laurens right now. He was aware his behaviour this morning hadn’t been anything like Hamilton had seen before. The kind of mindless, almost crazed manner he displayed had only been revealed to his family and the few poor souls that were with him upon Jemmy’s death.

Laurens grimaced.

Washington stayed back with Brigadier-General Morgan, but Laurens followed an eager Hamilton into the fray. He had expected the battle to almost become monotonous, yet Laurens quickly felt his blood sing once again. Alexander was a strong figure beside him, just as enraptured in the thrill as he.

Laurens sighted down the barrel of his rifle and cracked a shot that sent a redcoat tumbling. Even from the differing backdrop of Washington’s lines, the field had already taken on its familiar haze. But where Lee’s lines had become a jumbled mess, the men around him stood strong, slowly inching forward and neatly stepping over their defeated brothers when they tragically fell.

Laurens couldn’t help himself. More than once he had looked off in the direction Lee was supposed to be. It was difficult to see them now, if they were there at all. Anticipation was itching at the back of his mind.

“Laurens! Concentrate!” Laurens sharply turned his head in time to see Hamilton cut down a man that had his gun aimed right at him. _Yes, John, concentrate, damn you. This isn’t over yet._

The battle raged on, and Laurens could feel the minutes ticking by. How long had it been? It would be any moment now.

His estimation rang true. As successfully as the Continentals seemed to be making headway, all of a sudden the men were being pushed back. Though he could only see vague outlines, more and more enemy troops were arriving from the west. 

Alexander abruptly showed up at Laurens’ side. His face was smudged with soot and flicks of mud, and he was breathing hard. The man looked out to the massing of British troops with a confused, and even fearful expression.

“What is going on?” It was barely above a whisper, but Laurens heard it all the same.

“Lee,” Laurens growled icily. Realisation dawned on Alexander’s face.

Hamilton wheeled his horse and immediately set pace in the direction they had left Washington and Morgan. Laurens followed at his flank, whipping Josephine into the frenzied gallop to match the other man’s. They thundered up to where Washington sat, his face stony, as he looked upon the battle that had quickly turned to favour the enemy.

“Your Excellency!” Hamilton called breathlessly.

Washington glanced at him from under heavy drawn brows. The weather had almost gotten cool in the general’s presence.

“What is it, Colonel?”

“It’s General Lee, sir. He’s quit the field in retreat!”

If it were possible, Laurens would say that Washington only frowned deeper.

“It’s just as we had warned you, sir. He’s given the damn battle to the British!” Alexander finished, throwing a hand out to the mounting chaos.

“It’s true, Your Excellency,” Laurens added. With the frigid glare Washington had aimed at Hamilton, he looked like he needed the support.

Washington turned to address them both. “Do the two of you take me for a _fool?”_

Hamilton visibly recoiled, before recovering and hardening his expression. Laurens, in turn, unexpectedly felt a heavy weight of shame on his shoulders.

“At this very moment, sirs,” the General continued, “Major-General Lafayette is fighting on the far slope that overlooks General Lee’s offensive. If the General, that you seem to think so lowly of, were not still fighting, if the General had had the _gall_ to retreat at such a critical moment, Lafayette would have sent a messenger straight to me.”

Shouldn’t Lafayette have sent one regardless? He too, must be struggling to hold his lines. There was an inkling of worry sprouting in his gut, and Laurens dearly hoped the Marquis was alright. He pursed his lips. The General hadn’t finished with their dressing down quite yet.

“And yet, sirs, he has not. I, on the other hand, have sent messengers of my own to call for a retreat.”

Alexander balked. “ _Retreat?_ Sir—“

“That is _enough,_ Colonel Hamilton.” Washington’s voice was hard enough to crush stone. “That is my order, and you _will_ follow it. I will not lose more men than we have already.”

The lines of Hamilton’s neck stood out under his skin. He looked to John for support, but Laurens shook his head and had nothing to give. There was no point. Additional arguing would only sink the both of them further. _So, this is what happens when one doesn’t die before the battle’s end._

Alexander worked his jaw, and Laurens could see he desperately wanted to say something more. Yet, without a word, he fell in line with the rest of the officers who looked to the both of them with varying degrees of embarrassment and sympathy.

“ _This is a disgrace_ ,” he heard Hamilton stormily mutter as they moved to ride away in defeat.

\--

Lee and his questionably fresh looking soldiers joined their solemn march a mile out from the field. Washington was on him immediately, questioning the man loudly over the thump of boots on the dusty, sundried road. Laurens looked to the sky. The sun was dropping steadily toward the horizon. It would be evening soon.

“We had no choice to retreat,” Lee’s pompous voice answered as Laurens drew closer. Hamilton was as silent as the dead beside him.

“The British seemed to know just where we were going to strike at them. We must have been hit with double the force that was expected, Your Excellency. I assessed the situation, and took our only option.”

John saw red.

 _Liar!_ Rage seared his throat. It was so blistering, that Laurens was almost ready to jump from his horse and pull Lee to the dirt. How _dare_ he? Only option? Only _option?_ The _nerve_ of it! He was going to kill the man, damn the consequences! Laurens made to move his horse but was stopped by a sudden vice-like grip on his arm.

Hamilton was looking at him, his face an expressionless mask. He returned John’s earlier shake of his head. Laurens wanted to rip his arm away and continue on regardless, but Alexander’s expression soften minutely. Someone who didn’t know Alexander as well as he did would have missed it completely, but for Laurens it cooled some of his burning rage.

All communication ceased at the sound of hooves racing down the track towards them. Lee blanched and turned a deathly white. Laurens looked to see that the rider was none other than the Marquis de Lafayette; hat missing, crouched low in his saddle, and the wind whipping up the tails of his coat. Evidently Lee had wished a different outcome of the status of the Marquis’ health.

When he arrived, Lafayette took a moment to suck in some breaths before addressing the officers. Once recovered enough, he sent an especially vicious glare at Lee that Laurens hadn’t thought the cheerful Frenchman capable of. Laurens felt a sting of pride in his chest.

“My General, what is this cowardly man doing riding about free?” Lafayette said to Washington. “I saw him and his men quit the field before they had even properly warmed their guns!” Lafayette’s accent had grown doubly thick in his ire. If Laurens had not been so used to being around the Marquis, it might have proven difficult for him to comprehend what the man was saying.

Washington watched the two men passively. “Did you send a messenger, Lafayette?” He asked, frighteningly calm. The other officers had grown quiet, and the men that had been marching halted to watch the spectacle unfolding before them.

“I did indeed, my General. Did he not reach you?” Lafayette grimaced. “He must have gotten caught up in the chaos, poor man. I sent him as soon as I saw this travesty.”

Lafayette’s face was pinched with anger, and its juxtaposition to Washington’s serenity was almost laughable. Then again, as Laurens looked closer at their commander, Washington’s calm only seemed to be a dangerous illusion. Underneath it, there was a storm.

Washington turned back to Lee, who now looked as if he might pass out. “Care to explain yourself, General?”

\--

That night Laurens fell asleep on Josephine as she trailed lazily in a column on full retreat, that trudged along the beaten road.

Lee and his cronies had all earned themselves court martials. A fitting fate, Laurens thought. But one he may never see to fruition.

Hamilton rode alongside him, still ghostly silent and as stone-faced as a statue. The man was seething, and would continue to do so for days before suddenly erupting and letting a good deal of people know just how he felt. Or at the very least, he would let John know how he felt.

If there were to be any further days, that was.

He understood that even though Lee was at fault, Hamilton had laid the bulk of the blame at Washington’s feet. Theirs was an odd relationship, Alexander was not prone to worshiping the man like so many others. And although Hamilton blamed Washington, Laurens couldn’t quite bring himself to. The General had done the wisest thing with what little information he had. Even if part of him was bitter with regard to how the fiasco with Lee was handled, Laurens found it difficult to condemn a man he so deeply admired. Hamilton had no such qualms.

Now there was naught to do but retreat. It was unspoken, but all knew it would be difficult, if not near impossible to recover from this devastating loss. It hung in the air like the smell of rot. Congress would be sent into a frenzy.

Laurens relaxed in his saddle. Josephine’s plodding was soothing whilst coupled with the cool breeze of the night’s air. The moon above them was waning but still bright, lighting their sorry path to safety. Before long, Laurens felt himself drift off.

 

\--Loop 3--

Rustling fabric.

Well, that answered that question.

Laurens was not pleased.


	4. Chapter 4

\--Loop 7--

 

Seven loops. Seven losses. Whether Laurens participated or not, the Continentals were consistently forced into retreat. Laurens never enjoyed seeing the result of failure on the faces of their men, but it did give him time to think. And time was all he seemed to have now. Bringing Lee to justice was just about the only thing that kept Laurens going within this deepening hell.

Although Alexander always stood with him, however little he was actually convinced of Laurens’ ‘wild theory,’ nothing he could say held much weight with anyone else. Lafayette came in a close second, but the Frenchman, though he cherished Laurens as a close friend, advised caution and even optimism, instead. Only unmistakable betrayal would convince him. Lafayette was too honest of a man to give anything but the benefit of the doubt.

Washington, too, would have none of it. Generals Knox and Greene had either told him to go to Washington or scoffed in his face.

Cornering Lee himself had resulted in exaggerated outrage and a court martial. Laurens knew he was onto something, though. The man’s eyes had betrayed a deep seated fear when Laurens had snarled the word ‘ _traitor_ ’ in his face. But Lee had quickly turned smug once Laurens was wrestled to the ground by three other officers, Bradford among them.

Perhaps all this would be solved when finally Laurens wrapped his hands around Lee’s neck.

 

\--Loop 8--

 

In retrospect, strangling Lee was probably a bad idea.

Though, for the first time, the Continentals succeeded at Monmouth. The day was won, but Laurens, chained to a wall in the basement of the Courthouse, had not been there to see it.

It had felt good to trap Lee alone in his tent and press his thumbs into his windpipe until the cartilage snapped. Too see his eyes bulge, and to hear him wheeze. Laurens received retribution for the two painful deaths Lee had caused him, as well as the numerous disastrous losses, though of course the man under him at the time hadn’t known it. Lee had been well and truly dead by the time Laurens was ripped from him, and as he was dragged through the line of tents, past the room bearing his colleagues who looked on in horror, and down into the dark cellar, Laurens felt a moment of peace. That moment fled rather quickly.

Although the cellar was damp and cool, in the hours since, Laurens had broken out in a sweat. If the battle had been won, which resulted in the loop breaking, then tomorrow would be the twenty-ninth. And tomorrow, Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens would be given a comically fast trial before being hung by the neck for the murder of General Charles Lee.

This was not the way he had pictured himself dying. Preferably it would have been on a battlefield in a stroke of glory, but Laurens would have also taken the option of a warm bed after a long, successful life. Not hung as a criminal for a murder that was justly deserved.

And cruelly, his crime would not debase just himself. His father would be socially ruined, unless all traces of John were stricken from the Laurens family records. Even then his son’s shame would dog him in all the remaining years of Henry’s career. His siblings would have cause to suffer too. And then there was— no, there was no point in thinking of her. Or any of them.

Alexander had been quietly distraught when he came to see Laurens in chains. It was so utterly unlike him that the mere sight made John uneasy. When he had asked why, Laurens found he couldn’t give the full answer. What was the point? He would either die tomorrow at the gallows or Hamilton would forget everything regardless.

“I wanted us to succeed. I did it for our country,” was all he said instead. It sounded like an excuse to his ears, even if it was the truth.

“And the way to success is to murder a general? Laurens, what were you _thinking_?”Alexander’s frantic whisper bordered on hysterical. His shoulders were drawn and hunched as he stood above Laurens, and with his arms folded tightly across his chest, the man looked incredibly small.

“Lee was a traitor, Alex.”

“ _Don’t—_ “ Hamilton bared his teeth and looked away to the shoddy brickwork that was stuck with moss. “They’re saying the same thing about _you_.”

“Lee was going to retreat and make us lose the battle. You know I wouldn’t just _murder_ a man without reason.”

“Do I?” He asked incredulously.

And oh, that hurt. The pain must have shown on his face because Hamilton sighed.

“I’m sorry, I just… I don’t understand. Why didn't you _tell_ me? Why didn’t you _talk_ to me first? I thought we could share anything with one another.”

Laurens shook his head. _How could I explain the reality of it to you, my dear?_ “I didn’t want you mixed up in this. If you had known what I was going to do, you would probably be chained next to me.”

“I…” Alexander seemed to curl in on himself further. “Your trial is tomorrow… and I don’t know what to _do,_ John.” His voiced had thickened and taken an odd, accented lilt to it. Laurens desperately wanted to pull him close. Why did he do this? Why did he have to let his anger get the best of him? What a fool he was.

“Washington will not hear anything. Not even from me,” Hamilton continued. “I have tried reaching out to the others, but Lafayette was the only one willing to listen. Even _he_ tried to speak to Washington on your behalf to no avail.”

“There’s nothing to be done about it, my dear boy. This isn’t your fault. The blame is solely mine,” John consoled. It didn’t seem to make Hamilton feel any better.

After a moment, Laurens patted the bare ground beside him, the rattle of his chains filling the silence. Alexander hesitated with a pained expression, but then slid down the wall to seat himself, pressing the full length of his side to Laurens’. Without a word he allowed his hand when Laurens took it to grasp it in his own. It was pale, but warm. Slightly calloused as well. A worked hand that had seen rest for a number of years. Alexander threaded his fingers through John’s to seal them together.

Hours of silence passed between them. Throughout them, John pleaded to God to wake up in his bed tomorrow. Neither moved to light the candle stubs that huddled together on the lone table. The moon was always clear enough tonight, that squares of silver were painted onto the packed gravel from where the light had slipped in through the gaps in the brick. He murmured his prayers quietly under his breath as Hamilton folded himself as close as he could into Laurens, eventually drifting off to sleep. The smaller man’s hair was soft on his cheek and John wanted to curl his face into it and just breathe. He caught the scent of paper and wheat, bound with a musky undertone that was uniquely Alexander’s.

The feeling of guilt returned. Part of him wanted to nudge Hamilton awake and tell him the things had never had the courage to say until looming death forced his hand. The confused, chaotic mess of Laurens’ predicament had only sowed more discord throughout everything. He desperately hoped he would not wake up here tomorrow.

 

\--Loop 9--

 

When Laurens heard the rustle of fabric, he almost cried out in relief.

 


	5. Chapter 5

\--Loop 9--

 

Perhaps Laurens was going the wrong way about this. If he could rally the troops from the start, perhaps he could make the Continentals hold the front lines, regardless of Lee’s orders.

\--

Well, Laurens couldn’t say he was sorry to see Bradford shot. If only he hadn’t taken a bullet to the spine himself not long afterward.

 

 

\--Loop 10--

 

Fighting with General Greene instead produced no profound difference. However, Laurens did find out what it was like to be killed by a cannonball. A quick death, at least.

 

 

 

\--Loop 16--

 

Nothing changed.

No matter whether Laurens fought with Knox, Greene, Washington or Lee, the Continentals lost. Every single instance, they lost. Ultimately, what was the point? Even if they did somehow leave the day victorious, what evidence was there that the loop would actually break? Laurens killing Lee had proved that, had it not? Really, what was the _damn point?_

Laurens left the tent before he had to explain to Alexander why their writing desk was in pieces on the ground.

 

 

\--Loop 20--

 

Some days Laurens did not go to the battlefield at all. He explored as much of the land within New Jersey that he could ride in a day, often shedding his uniform and stealing civilian clothes from where they hung in various gardens. In the time, he inspected coves, and secret glens. He edged around sparse villages and the even sparser towns. To the north, on the side of a plateau, he found a waterfall hidden away by a mess of trees.

Laurens looked inside farmhouses abandoned in the Seven Years War to the west, careful not to venture too close to British territory. Some were more of the inhabited kind, of which the freemen or slaves that worked the fields either ignored him, looked on with a wary suspicion, or in the case of the Jones’: invited him to lunch.

Laurens returned a time or two, appreciative of company that wasn’t military.

Some days he was caught and arrested. Most days he wasn’t.

 

 

\--Loop 23--

 

The main house of the abandoned farm was built out in the open, but the barn sat on the edge of a low flowing river, cloistered by a haunt of leafy trees and brush. A boardwalk had been built – not anything substantial, but enough that one could throw a line out into the river in hopes of a meal. Laurens sat at the end of it, stockings and boots off, and laying on the warped boards behind him, his breeches rolled up his thighs so he could trail his feet in the soft current. In the swaying grass off to his side, Josephine pulled happily on the vibrant shoots.

Jemmy would have liked it here. The angle of the trees caught the brunt of the sun’s light, throwing Laurens into shade with specks of yellow peppered on his lower half. It was not as hot as South Carolina would be around this time of the season, though New Jersey still tried its honest best. Humidity choked the air this close to the river, but the cool water was enough to kept one from getting too hot. Jemmy and the rest of Laurens’ younger siblings, the melancholic childhood versions of them at least, would have no doubt been in the water, rooting around in the shallows together, and screeching like a flock of ruffled birds.

If he imagined hard enough, Laurens could also see a younger version of his mother, seated in a chair on the wharf beside him, her smile bright and wide from under the cover of her colourful lady’s umbrella. His father didn’t seem to have a place; the vision of him that John held was that of a man who always closed himself off, the door of his study shut tight behind him and the demand for ‘quiet’ echoing in the air.

The reality that memories may be the only thing Laurens would ever have of them again, hit him as he watched a duck dive beneath the water. There were so many questions he wanted answers for, but nothing about this situation seemed to provide any more answers than it did logic. How was this happening? Why him? Why today? Had he actually died? He always returned to that question. Not that John presumed to be wholly intimate with the scripture, but he was sure the holy bible never spoke of anything like this within its pages. _Was_ this punishment for his transgressions? For what he had done with those other men years ago in their little dorm in Geneva? Had that really stained him so profoundly? His father had warned him, but he had not taken heed. What a son, he was.

The duck returned to the surface and shook off the water drops that looked more like crystals in the sunlight. It quacked before swimming back to the safety of its brethren, where they sunned themselves under the cattails. If this was hell, then it was beautiful. Perhaps, of all things, that was the cruellest part.

As the clouds in his mind grew thicker, Laurens could feel the threat of the looming, suffocating despair crawling at his neck and he shivered. It felt like London. It felt like the scene of a little boy’s broken body at the bottom of a wall. _I can’t. I can’t go through that again._ He shook himself, forcibly clearing the images from his head.

He could not give into that despair. Not again. There _had_ to be a way out of this.

Laurens _needed_ there to be a way out of this.


	6. Chapter 6

\--Loop 25--

 

No matter how hard Laurens tried to avoid it, the nagging feeling that was Charles Lee came back again and again. It had taken on a sense of righteous duty that refused to leave him, one that had only grown stronger in his thoughts when he returned from roaming the countryside. Admittedly, the feeling also helped push the impression of doomed inevitability to the side.

Counting the repeating days had become more of a habit than anything else. This morning he had scratched ‘25’ onto Martha’s blank letter (had it really been almost a month?) as he contemplated the man he had done his utmost to refrain from seeing or thinking about. Laurens felt a spike of frustration as he penned the man’s name, and he underlined it with enough strength that the paper ripped and the metal tip bit into the wood grain beneath.

He threw down the fountain pen. What to do? He had no evidence. It always came back to no evidence. And that was ignoring the issue that Laurens was also suffering from a discouraging lack of more information. Lee was a coward and scoundrel, but was he anything more than that? Laurens had spat the word in his face to get a reaction, true, but was the man an actual traitor? The way he pulled back his troops seemed so precise, so timed, that Laurens felt there had to be more to it. But _was_ there more to it? He needed more than a gut feeling if he could not even fully convince himself, no matter what he had said to Hamilton a time ago. Or what felt like a time ago, if time never really passed here.

Was there a chance that Lee was in league with the British? Laurens wouldn’t be surprised in the least, but if he was to be sure, then he was going to have to slip behind enemy lines.

He did not bother putting on his blue officer’s jacket before leaving his messy desk, picking up a few choice supplies, and making his way past the line of tents outside. Laurens had left the American’s camp enough times now that heading down to where the camp followers hung washed clothes, and slipping through the treeline, was easy. The patrol wouldn’t pass through for another thirty minutes at least, giving him enough time to drop down into a ridge and follow it toward British-held territory. Laurens kept a line of tent rope around his forearm, curling and uncurling it as he decided on a hasty plan.

No guns, he couldn’t risk any noise. He had a knife in his boot, just in case, but the rope would serve as a means to strangle the men of the redcoat patrol, of which he hoped there would be no more than three, preferably youths. He would need to hide the bodies, perhaps under dead leaves, then he would take a uniform and get as close to command as possible. Surely they would be talking of plans for the battle.

And of possible American traitors.

\--

It took an hour of on and off jogging through the forest, but eventually Laurens heard voices over his heavy breathing. Ducking behind a root covered mound, he spied a patrol of two men lazily wandering through the spaces between the trees, quibbling on about nothing of true substance. The taller of the two was gesturing with his hands, speaking lowly while the other, rounder one chuckled and slapped the butt of his rifle. _Damn it to hell._ Laurens was a tall man, and reasonably strong, but the large redcoat would have weight on his side. The taller redcoat would be easier to deal with, but only if the other was removed from the fight first. They needed to be separated. There was no feasible way John could deal with them both at once.

He picked through the leaves at his feet. After a moment, he found a smooth, fist-sized river stone – heavy enough to cause a distraction, but light enough to throw – and slinked away from his cover. The redcoats trailed ahead, unaware of the South Carolinian man softly stepping behind them. When they passed the base of a large tree, Laurens slipped behind it, pushing his back against the trunk. As he glanced around it to the right, he could see the taller redcoat a few steps in front of the other man who was almost directly on the other side of Laurens’ tree.

Anticipation slid down his back. It had to be now.

Taking one more glance, Laurens lobbed the stone off to the left, praying that the large man would stay put.

“What the fuck was that?”

Both redcoats froze where they stood. Laurens unravelled the rope around his arm.

“Go look, Jacobs,” the large one said.

“What? Why me?” Jacobs’ deeper voice responded.

“Just go and bloody look, man! It’s probably just a hare.”

A grumble followed footsteps and Laurens hissed out a breath of relief.

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

He pushed himself off the tree and lunged at the red, unguarded back on the other side. The man let out a wheeze of surprise that was quickly choked off by the hemp rope which had found its way around his neck. Laurens pulled back with all his might, dragging the heavy man back to his hiding spot. It proved a struggle when the redcoat’s gaiter caught on a length of root that stuck out of the forest floor.

_Shit, shit!_ Laurens launched himself back, trying to force the man while avoiding the flailing hands that attempted to wrench the rope free. With another heave, the redcoat’s shoe flew off into some underbrush, allowing Laurens to drag him unsteadily away. The man soon fell limp, but the damage had been done. There was no way that Jacobs hadn’t heard the encounter.

“Wallis?” Jacobs called nervously. “Where have you gone?”

Laurens knelt by Wallis’ rapidly cooling body, trying to catch his breath. The struggle had lasted mere seconds, but Laurens felt exhausted.

Cautious footsteps thumped closer. “Wallis? Oh, God.”

There was a swish of cloth, followed by ripping paper. _He’s loading his rifle,_ Laurens realised. _Shit!_

He dived around the tree. Jacobs cried out in surprise as he was suddenly barrelled into by another man with the full force of his weight behind him. Laurens slapped the rifle away in his flurry, sending the locked gun flying away into the brush. They rolled back and forth together, each trying to gain the upper hand as quickly as possible, ripping away at the other’s attempt to come out on top. Jacobs’ proved himself to be remarkably strong.

Laurens huffed in surprise when he was thrown onto his back as they grappled for the rope. The British troop pulled viciously on the hemp, but Laurens held onto it like a dog with a bone. The other man lobbed a fist to his cheek, dazing him for split second and suddenly the redcoat’s hands were pawing at his neck.

Jacobs’ palms were sweaty and they slipped off the skin as he tried to press them down. Yet that did not put him off from trying once again. _I may lose this,_ Laurens reflected with disdain. The prospect of going through this again was increasingly irksome. John made a choice. It was not an honourable one, but these were desperate times.

He brutally sent his knee up between Jacobs’ legs, and the man choked on his breath in a silent scream.

In one swift movement, Laurens had them flipped and the rope pressed to the redcoat’s throat. He winced when a ragged nail caught his cheek, but held on as the body below him began to wildly convulse. After a struggle, it eventually slackened into death.

Laurens fell onto his back and gulped down air. He felt almost utterly spent and he had yet to truly begin his mission. Still, it was all going to plan. There was no time spare to be spent wasting it on fatigue, he had to carry on. Pulling himself back up was a struggle, but a few more breaths, and he swept some of the dirt from his knees and boots before getting up.

John sighed as he looked at the two bodies he had yet to hide. This effort had better be worth it.

\--

Just wearing the coat felt traitorous. It was only a coat that Laurens had had to steal for a purpose, but it was more about the principle of it.

Jacobs’ was a bit shorter than Laurens and it showed in the tightness of the shoulders. The straps for his rifle had to be loosened, and the cocked hat was a tad too large, but all in all, Laurens looked no different than any of the other lobsterbacks that hurried around the camp. He supposed he was lucky that a battle was imminent otherwise more of a fuss would have been raised about the mysteriously missing patrol. As it was, the men were too busy to raise an alarm. Likewise, the British were too busy to realise they had gained a man.

It took a while to find the basecamp amongst the tents, but once he had, Laurens hung about a few paces away and watched the comings and goings. Messengers were dispatched at a rapid rate; boys constantly flowing in and out, calling to each other as they passed. A fat, older gentleman paused at the tent flap to speak to someone, before moving out to an awaiting stable-hand holding the reins of a jittery beast. Laurens squinted. The man’s face was somewhat recognisable. General Cornwallis if he wasn’t mistaken.

The general’s conversation partner followed him out, and there was no mistaking who _he_ was.

Major John André.

The British spymaster appeared at ease, even as the sun beat down on the camp. He and his uniform were impeccably clean; his queue long and neat down his back, as was the small braid under his ear. His red coat hardly looked worn, though Laurens knew better than to accuse André of inexperience. If there was anyone to have information, it would be him.

Laurens moved closer under the guise of helping another soldier unpeg one of the tents adjacent to the large marquee.

“I shall be with General Clinton, overseeing the battle,” André was saying whilst adjusting his cuffs. “I suspect things shall go our way today, General. However if there are any problems hence forth, I will be sure to send one of the boys along with a message.”

“We are trusting you in this, Major,” was all Cornwallis said before encouraging his beast into a trot out of the camp. André watched after him for a moment, then turned back to whence he came.

Laurens worked a peg out of the ground. Why was André so sure things would go well for the British? He was a spymaster, not a tactician. And ‘they’ had placed ‘ _their_ ’ trust in him? Something was afoot and Laurens didn’t like being kept in the dark.

He continued to with the men that paid him no real mind for a while longer to watch for anything more of interest. But whatever that was, it stayed within the confines of the marquee. Soldiers were beginning to gather for the short march to the field; shrugging on their various pouches and taking last minute bites of their ash cakes. Now would be the smartest time to flee the camp, but Laurens had only a teased portion of the meal laid out in front of him. He needed to stay, even better, he needed to follow André and the other officers out onto the field to listen in on their conversations. Surely something substantial would be revealed then.

Laurens looked around. The British officers must have minders: nameless soldiers at their beck and call to get them what they needed. He doubted any one of them would recognise or expect to have a Continental Lieutenant-Colonel sneaking around in their midst.

The first sign of trouble came when one of the men he was helping frowned at him and looked towards the line of soldiers that were almost ready to march. He opened his mouth to say something, but another bearded man, sitting on his haunches to the right, beat him to it.

“Shouldn’t you be lining up about now, soldier?” He asked, scratching at his mane. “They’ll leave without you.”

Laurens swore internally. Evidently he was missing a piece of uniform that marked him out as more than a common soldier. He was saved answering the man by the sudden, whip-like order from a lieutenant on horseback.

“What are you doing out of formation, man? _”_ He stabbed his finger to the waiting line. “Stop dawdling and move out!”

Laurens looked back at the Operation’s tent before gritting his teeth. Damn it all, he was so close to his prize. If he tried to leave now he would be shot before he could run two paces. Now he had no choice but to tighten the strap of his bayonet scabbard, and form up between several boys that looked like they should have been clutching their mothers’ skirts. It seemed that death would be provided for him today, despite his eagerness to avoid it. Laurens’ mood soured further. A few of the braver boys smiled at him weakly.

\--

 

The battle of Monmouth wasn’t much different from the other side. Cannon smoke still slathered the field. Men still cried out in equal amounts of exhilaration, fear, and pain. Leaking bodies still scattered the ground, though looking redder than Laurens was used to.

His effort was minimal. He wasn’t a traitor, and whether or not he woke up tomorrow on the American side, he refused to kill his own men. Every bullet Laurens loaded and sent was aimed higher than the mightiest of the colossi were tall. He didn’t bother with his bayonet, nor the short sword strapped to his hip.

Still, Laurens was pushed further and further into the front lines as the British fell like Italian dominoes. He was loading his rifle for another shot aimed skyward when a shout was raised down the line.

“Dragoons! They are sending their Dragoons!”

Laurens heard them a moment later. Thundering hooves that were louder than the great booms of artillery. Laurens tried to draw away to the second line but he was met with resistance. He glanced behind him to lock eyes with a taller man at his back who had his hat pulled low and his rifle aimed and ready. With a glare he smashed Laurens forward with his shoulder almost making him stumble into the mud that slicked his boots.

The Dragoons were almost upon them. All of them had pulled their rapiers from their sheaths and were ready to swing. Gunfire cracked in Laurens’ ears, but only some struck home, causing a few of the Continentals to feebly tumble from their horses. One was heading straight toward him. There was no foreseeable way John could raise his rifle in time, even if he had any wish to fire.

The man was of a similar age, with a face Laurens knew. A major that took habit to convene with Washington in secret, as was befitting his head of intelligence. Tallmadge. Benjamin Tallmadge.

Laurens was nearly chest-to-chest with his horse when Tallmadge’s eyes widened in surprise as he suddenly recognised just whose neck his blade was headed for. It was an attribute to the man’s character that he apparently knew the faces of Washington’s staff so well. Laurens could see him attempt to angle his blade away, but it was too late. Too much force was already behind the blow.

Death comes quickly when one is missing most of one’s neck.


	7. Chapter 7

\--Loop 26--

 

This time Laurens waited until Jacobs and Wallis passed before sneaking onward to the British camp. He hung back at the treeline, close to where the camp followers went about their business. The women were hard at work; kneading the various coat, shirts and breeches that belonged to the men, as well as helping to prepare food to be served.

Laurens scanned the tents. At least _somewhere_ there had to be a spare officer’s coat that wouldn’t be missed. It would be without its epaulets and gorget of course, but Laurens decided he would take one thing at a time. There was no other way he could get close enough to André without being sent out once again as British cannon fodder. Even that was still up for debate.

Laurens edged around the trees to where lengths of rope had been tied to dead Ash trees in a makeshift clotheslines. A small number of blood red coats swung in the breeze, so he jogged toward them, making sure to keep low and out of sight of the few women that hung about an extinguished campfire nearby.

Most were simple Infantry coats, not unlike the one Laurens had liberated from Jacobs’ corpse. The few officer’s coats that were there looked either enormous or still too large for Laurens’ liking. Apparently, all the younger officers had their clothes washed and mended on a different day. With a huff, he snatched the one that looked like it could be the best fit and returned to the treeline.

Slipping it on, he found the cuffs a touch too loose, as was the coat’s waistline, but it would serve if only he avoided buttoning it up. Laurens supposed he didn’t look all that different from a boy playing soldier in his father’s coat. The lack of uniform detail still proved a problem, but the mere sight of status should allow him to avoid unwanted question, at least until he entered the rows of tents at the heart of the British camp, where he could continue the hunt.

 _This still doesn’t feel right,_ Laurens thought with disgust as he made it past the supply tent and into the lair of the beast once again. Red did not suit him.

He kept an eye out to quickly search for an unoccupied officer’s tent as he power-walked, chest puffed and doing his utmost to appear intimidating as possible. It wouldn’t do to be stopped by the likes of a Colonel or a man of a higher rank now.

Seeing the first opportunity, Laurens ducked into a larger, linen marquee that bore a freshly polished rapier on the edge of the folded bunk. Grabbing the sword, he looked around.

Everything was neatly arranged, so different from the one that he and Hamilton shared. Laurens laid the blame on Alexander for the state of their tent, if the smaller man’s stockings were not hanging from a hook, or curled around the chair, then they were bound to be somewhere like inside Laurens’ bunk; however that had happened.

“Oh, thank God,” Laurens exclaimed when he saw a well sized red officer’s coat hanging from the back of tent’s chair.

Swapping them quickly, he proceeded to rummage through the unknown man’s luggage in an effort to find the missing parts to complete the uniform. In a pocket he found a pair of major’s golden epaulets, which he hurriedly strapped to his shoulders. A red sash lay near the bottom, scrunched and tangled, but it would do if no one looked upon it too hard. Searching for a gorget proved more difficult. With a _thump,_ Laurens closed the chest in defeat.

He combed a hand through his hair. Where could he find one? Every moment Laurens stayed in this tent was dangerous, and yet without that little metal plate, Laurens would be caught instantly and reprimanded. He had to continue searching.

His quest proved dangerously successful two tent rows down.

Passed out on his bunk, laid a captain, still dressed head to toe, but face-down on the ruffled mess of sheets. The distinct odour of whisky clung to the air, mixed with the sourness of bile. Luckily for Laurens, the man had some mind left to remove his gorget before succumbing to drink, and leave it on the low stool sitting before a stinking bucket. The captain was none-the-wiser when the American infiltrator fled his tent, prize in hand.

Nobody questioned Laurens some time later, when he requested a horse from the stable-hands, after he had re-emerged from pretending to send some letters, (he had yet to obtain a horse, you see, don’t ask questions of a Major with connections such as he did if you knew what was good for you), nor did anyone question him as he rode out to a small hill on the battlefield, a little ways away from the party that held the likes of André and General Clinton.

Laurens was comfortable with keeping his mouth shut and staying far enough away behind from André that the man could be heard, but could not see him in return. He was so close, he could not lose it all now.

Beside him a rough, middle-aged Major and a toffee-haired, young Captain laughed together, trading prospects of the battle’s outcome. They appeared as confident as André had been.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” the Captain said. “Did you hear what happened to Whitlock this morning? The poor Major had gone out to shave and had come back to find that someone had replaced his coat and nicked the detail from his luggage.”

The Major scoffed. “Unbelievable! What scoundrel would do such a thing? And in the King’s very own army to boot! I suspect the poor Major will miss the battle now, damned shame.”

“You suspect correctly,” the Captain replied. “No well-bred man would represent his king on the battlefield half dressed. A complete mockery would be made of him, and rightly so.”

Laurens shuffled on his horse nervously. Calm. He was just a simple major, fresh on the field. They had no reason to know him, nor he them. Focus.

The movement caught the Captain’s eye. _Damn it all._ The man abashedly looked at him up and down.

“Well, I say, I’m sorry to be rude sir, but who might you be? I can’t say I’ve seen you around headquarters before.”

Laurens forced himself to remain steady. They had no reason to suspect anything of him.

Clearing his throat, he summoned his best aristocratic English accent. “No, I don’t suppose you would have, sir. Major John Manning. Just arrived down from York City last night.” He sidled his horse closer and held out a hand to the Major.

“Ah yes,” the Major remarked, nodding his head. “We’ve received a few of your kind over the past week.” He took Laurens’ hand. “Major William Shore, pleasure to make your acquaintance sir.”

“Captain John Langford,” the younger man said shaking his hand vigorously, when Laurens offered it to him in turn. “Likewise a pleasure, sir.”

After the exchange of pleasantries, the two instantly took to him, and, to Laurens’ relief, cast no further suspicion save for courteous curiosity. They spoke for a time, Shore asking about ‘Manning’s’ opinion on the outcome of Monmouth (to which Laurens replied, not without a little dourness, “our troops will of course smash these Continentals and send them away with their tails between their legs”). Langford revealed himself to be just as enthusiastic in speech as he was in manner; flitting from one topic to the next like an overgrown hummingbird. It was exhausting just listening to the man. Throughout it all, Laurens kept an ear on Clinton and André’s conversation, eager for any mention of Lee or his impending retreat.

He was rewarded not long into the battle.

“Lee will be moving soon,” André remarked simply, completely untroubled. “Just as promised.”

Just as promised.

Just as _promised?_

Clinton was bobbing his head, but Laurens was suddenly having a difficult time keeping _his_.

The scoundrel! The absolute _rat!_ Charles Lee _had_ betrayed them. The entire battle was no more than a sham, and it was all due to that whore’s son that called himself a patriot. Laurens clenched the horn of his saddle so tightly the leather creaked. How many had died— _would_ die because of that man? Because he had signed his soul over to the enemy, and for what? Wealth, whores, and an attractive title? Any regret he had felt for strangling Lee vanished.

He hadn’t even realised his borrowed horse had uncomfortably crept forward until Langford made a noise of surprise. “Ah! Manning, I don’t suppose you’ve met General Clinton and Major André yet, have you? You probably arrived far too late last night.”

Laurens felt like he had just been dipped in ice-water, his fury petering out all at once. _Oh no._ “No, really, it’s fine, Captain. The General and Major are probably far too busy—“

“Nonsense,” Langford said, waving him off. “I’m sure General Clinton would be interested to hear how your journey was.”

“General Clinton! Major André!” Langford called down to them from their place higher on the slope. Both men turned at the sound of the Captain’s voice, and Langford beckoned Laurens to follow as he clicked his heels into his beast’s sides.

Laurens forced himself to go after the man, keeping as calm as he was able. The worst that could happen would be that Clinton and André recognised him as a fraud and take him prisoner. It was not like Laurens had any papers as proof of his identity, so declaiming his story would be rather simple. He would be captured for infiltration, given an officer’s hospitality, and then the day would reset tomorrow. He had never met either man face-to-face, so there was a low chance being—

André’s eyes instantly widened upon looking at John, and Laurens felt ice slip down his spine. – _Recognised._ André was far more intense the closer one came to the man. His neatness extended across his clothing, to his very face. Though older than Laurens, he could still be considered young; the laugh lines around his eyes had yet to fully deepen. His hands clean, and fingernails trimmed, John André was not one for battle, though from the sharpness of his blue eyes, Laurens could tell he was dangerous. Extremely so.

The two of them stared at one another for a few awkward moments before Langford cut through the tension.

“Sirs, if I may. It is my pleasure to introduce Major John Manning, newly arrived from England via York City.”

André had hardly become the British Spymaster by sitting on his hands. Laurens cursed internally. Of course the man would recognise him, he most probably had an entire network at his neat fingertips that knew all the descriptions of his enemy’s higher ranks. How could he be so _thoughtless_?

But instead of immediately turning to Clinton to inform him of the Continental spy standing before them, André only smiled brightly. More than that, he held out his hand for Laurens to take. His grip was surprisingly strong. “Major Manning, a pleasure to meet you at last. Major John André, at your service.” Laurens was at a loss for words.

Beside the braided man, Clinton huffed. “Manning? I don’t recognise that name.”

Laurens went to open his mouth, but André beat him to it. “You may not have yet seen the papers that recently came in, General. Major Manning here was scheduled to arrive later this week.” He turned back to Laurens, eyes keen. “You’re early.”

“We made good time,” Laurens choked and quickly twisted toward Clinton. From the corner of his vision, he could see André smooth a hand over his mouth to hide his smile as Laurens precariously shook the General’s hand. “I wanted to arrive before the battle to lend whatever support I could, sir.”

Clinton let out a deep, bellied laugh. “Good man, good man. Have you had much experience on the battlefield, my boy? You say you only arrived from England recently.”

Laurens faltered. “Ah, no, sir. My father only died this past year, thus giving me his commission. I’m afraid I’m rather green.”

Clinton laughed again. “Honesty is always a good thing to have, my boy. Not to worry,” He gave his horse’s neck a strong pat, “we’ll harden you up soon enough. You have my sympathies regarding your father, of course. A terrible thing.”

Much to John’s chagrin, André chose that time to interject. “General, if I may. I have been recently informed that our troops are holding off the Marquis de Lafayette’s lines for the moment, but that may soon change. If Major Manning here wishes for a taste of combat, the Marquis presents the perfect opportunity.” He smiled at Laurens, “Wouldn’t you agree, Major?”

Clinton rubbed his chin, nodding. “Yes, yes, a wise recommendation, Major. Nothing better than for a young Englishman to wet his teeth with French blood. You might get a taste for it, eh?”

Laurens felt ill. No, he didn’t think he ever would ‘get a taste’. He would rather _die_ than take up arms against one of his friends. He would rather out himself to Clinton right this instant. “Actually, General Clin—“

“Excellent!” André interrupted, and he turned to Langford, whose attention had been drawn back to the field. “Captain Langford, if you would be so kind as to escort Major Manning eastward to where Major-General Leslie has his troops on the defensive. I’m sure he would appreciate the Major’s support.”

“Ah, yes, I would be happy to, Major,” the man returned enthusiastically, grinning and already wheeling his horse, ready to go.

“I…” He had no choice. Laurens couldn’t reject the command, André had made it abundantly clear that he wouldn’t let him. The man was a tiger, and within the space of their brief meeting, it seemed as if he were already two steps ahead. He had found a prize in the curious Continental officer who, for some reason or another had chosen to wander into his camp and play spy.

He would have to fight for the enemy a second time, two far too many for Laurens to feel any semblance of assent. Damn that man. Damn him to hell.

\--

It would be fine. Laurens would just do what he had done the previous day. An officer would be even less at fault for half-heartedly fighting than an infantry man. The rich, commissioned officers always wished to keep their skins. If he could get himself shot in a way that killed him quickly, then that would be even better. He had what he came for. Lee was a traitor.

When Langford had dropped him off at Leslie’s side, the Major-General had immediately passed him a rifle and sent him off like a schoolboy to the front lines.

It would be fine, Laurens kept telling himself. It would be fine.

André was not wrong when he said that Lafayette threatened to push them back. The Continental troops were merciless, pounding on the British lines until the redcoats were forced to retreat a few paces and reform. The gunfire was constant, and although this part of the field was bereft of cannons, the smoke from the rifles alone had made the air hazy.

Laurens pushed his horse forward, tucking himself amongst the second line of grenadiers at the British flank and cracking off fake shots into the air. His trepidation had died down with his relocation away from the enigma André decided himself to be; a problem to be dealt with later, or preferably not at all. The mare, however, was becoming anxious. So much so that he had to keep wrapping the reins around his fist to stop her from fidgeting.

He stilled her for a fourth time when he heard a throaty, accented voice shout across the battlefield.

“Déplacez, mes amis! We will soon have them!”

A stalwart Lafayette was in amongst his troops, fighting with them as if he were some grand medieval king. What was he doing? Laurens thought as he spied the Marquis, _he should be watching from the hill!_ The Continental Army could hardly afford to lose one of their Major-Generals at such a dire phase in the war.

The Frenchman wheeled his stallion to slash at a redcoat, and kicked off down the field, encouraging the men as he wove in and out of the lines before rounding at their backs. How was he supposed to see Lee’s retreat from this part of the flat? The man needed to hurry up and move.

Laurens made to go to him, before remembering what colour coat he wore. _Damn it!_ He moved nonetheless, pushing his mare out from behind the second line and in amongst the first. A dangerous place to be, but he needed to see what Lafayette was doing.

The Frenchman careened back along his lines, pausing to brace his rifle to his shoulder and aim… exactly at Laurens.

He watched as Lafayette dropped the gun down to his side, his face open in shock. It quickly transformed into something that caused his gut to feel like it had dropped out from underneath him: genuine _hurt._

 _No, Lafayette! It’s not what you think!_ Laurens wanted to scream it, but that would hardly help now. He had to go to him. He had to explain what he had done. He whipped his reins and threw his mare into the dead space between the two armies. He didn’t get far when a bullet ripped through his shoulder, sending waves of agony across his chest. The force of it almost threw him from his horse. And suddenly there were hands at his reins, pulling his mare back to the safety of the British line.

Ahead of him, Lafayette had already turned and begun to gallop up the hill. Clutching his burning shoulder, Laurens could just see Lafayette speaking to a man. He was motioning wildly down the ridge toward the British.

Toward Laurens.

Laurens could almost hear him. ‘ _Laurens has betrayed us! He is with the British!’_

 _No, I’m not,_ he thought desperately, _my friend, I would **never**. _

Another man rode up to them, pointing out across the field in another direction. They stood together for a moment, before Lafayette sent the first man away. Laurens watched as the man rode through the treeline and was gone. Lee had finally begun his retreat.

\--

The Americans won.

Lafayette’s messenger had arrived at his destination unharmed. Laurens could only imagine what he had said to Washington.

He supposed it didn’t matter now, not as he was being dragged through the Continental camp as a spectacle. There was no yelling, nor screaming. Just the stunned murmuring of men seeing one of their most highly thought of Lieutenant-Colonels wearing a red coat, and the golden epaulets of a British major.

Laurens stepped off the cart that had drawn him to the courthouse, keeping his face set hard and straight ahead. He had no other choice but to.

Somewhere in the crowd stood Alexander. John did not look for him. Deep down, Laurens knew himself to be a coward. And although he was not, seeing Alexander look at him the way someone would regard a traitor, a traitor who, as far as he knew, until this morning had been his dearest friend, was more than John thought he could take. So he refused. Refused to look anywhere but forward as he was marched into the courthouse, and the door of the hall was closed behind him.

Washington sat in the room alone, behind the solid oak desk. The solemn candles threw light on only half his face; catching on his strong jawline, painting the tips of his curled brown hair, and coalescing in the aged lines around his eyes and mouth. Washington looked like carved marble; solid and eternal. And Laurens’ footsteps were loud on the wooden floorboards.

The surgeon had been kind enough to give him a sling for his arm, but his shoulder still twinged painfully as he seated himself in the chair before the General. The pain, however, was minimal compared to the pure _shame_ he felt as he sat under Washington’s scrutiny. Not even his father had ever made him feel like he did now, like all his sins as a son had never amounted to anything like this. _I’m innocent,_ he told himself. It was weak.

“Major John André has sent a request for a trade for a ‘Major Manning’,” Washington said, breaking the silence in his sonorous, drawn out baritone. “Five of our officers to be returned in exchange for just you. That is quite an offer.”

Laurens stayed silent, and stared at the cracks on the varnished surface of the desk. There was nothing he could possibly say to save himself now. He did not deserve it.

“I have rejected it.”

He wanted to crawl inside himself; block everything out, just so that he wouldn’t have to hear anymore. The shame was beginning to curl his spine.

“Your father will be disappointed.”

And that made John look up.

Washington’s gaze was bereft of all the things Laurens had ever known it to hold. There was no warmth. No quiet mirth. No pride. No righteousness. No anger, and no outrage. It was just… _empty._ Like the man was looking at a complete stranger. Like the man was looking at his enemy.

“I have sent a missive to Congress. You will be held—“

“No,” Laurens croaked. _Enough, I cannot take this any longer._ “Let’s just be done with it.”

_Just let it be over._

\--

A crowd had gathered to see him, as a black bag was slipped over his head, and a rope fastened around his neck. He listened to them jeer, and called him all the things he had already called himself and though himself to be in that moment. And yet, as the cart was pushed away, and as the world fell out from underneath him, John Laurens felt the fierce, burning satisfaction of the one thing he knew to be true in this hell:

General Charles Lee was a traitor.


	8. Chapter 8

\--Loop 27--

 

When Laurens charged into the courthouse and grabbed Hamilton and Lafayette each by the arm, both of the men gave squawks of surprise and confusion as they were dragged to a corner of the hall. Laurens ignored them until they were far enough away from the other staff that coarse whispers wouldn’t be overhead lightly. Tilghman shot them an odd look, but quickly returned his focus to the stack of messages at his side.

“Laurens, what are you doing? Is something the matter?” Hamilton leaned in like an eager conspirator, quick enough to pick up that Laurens had no wish to announce his reasons to the entire room. Conspiracy would not be far off the mark, if his last repeat had not confirmed the reality.

“My friend, what has come over you?” Lafayette added his voice, though his already difficult accent was made worse by his attempt to lower his volume. He righted his gold trimmed hat, which had dipped to one side from Laurens’ manhandling, but the Frenchman didn’t appeared at all perturbed.

Laurens looked between them. Both would hear what he would say, he did not doubt it, but this would be the very first time he had brought Lafayette into the fold from the beginning. The risk, if there was to be any at this point, would be minimal, and he trusted Lafayette intensely, but he did not rule out the suspicion that the man would turn him down in the way Hamilton never had. Still, Laurens could not repeat the same actions and expect better results. Perhaps if Hamilton and Lafayette were told together, he would have two allies instead of one. And God only knew he felt like he needed allies today.

“I understand that what I am about to tell you will be hard to comprehend, but I have it under good authority that General Lee is a traitor.” Laurens pressed on at the shocked reactions he received. The responding flare of apprehension he usually felt had long since waned thin. “He has been bought off by the British Major John André, and intends to quit the battlefield in an early retreat, thus giving Monmouth to the enemy and causing us a humiliating defeat.”

By the time Laurens finished his rather short, well-practised summarisation, both of his friends were staring at him in open disbelief. Better to get the easiest part over quickly. He now had the tools to bring about a successful day, but the pressure to bring it to fruition was steadily mounting.

The shame of his last repeat had carved a hollow between his shoulder blades. A hard devil to shake off, the shame had dug itself into his soul, and John could feel it biting deeper and deeper. He _must_ do this correctly. He had to do something that could win this day. He _had_ to. Though he had always been on the wrong side of it, Laurens knew the battle could be won. If only he could find a way to achieve it.

Hamilton opened and closed his mouth, doing his best to imitate a carp. Lafayette was not responding much better. They looked to one another before Hamilton attempted a reply.

“I… don’t know what to say, Laurens. How… how did you find this information?” His brows knotted as he tried to puzzle out his own question. “Tallmadge? But you… why would he tell you? Does Washington know? But if so, why would he allow—“

Laurens held up a hand, wincing internally at Alexander’s responding frown. “It didn’t come from Tallmadge.” There was no point dragging the major into this, who would no doubt show the same amount of confusion as Hamilton and likely cast similar questions his way.  Laurens still had no evidence to show them and was under no pretences that either of them, certainly not Lafayette, would believe him without pleading or appealing to blind faith, but he hoped the specificity of the details would lend him more favour than it had in the past. They could—and in the Frenchman’s case: probably would— reject him, but if he could at least get their consideration, then Laurens would take it with gratitude.

“I’ve a contact among the British camp followers. I haven’t told anyone of her for her safety but she assures me this information is true.” Laurens did not like the look Hamilton was giving him at mention of his imaginary contact’s sex.

Lafayette’s raised thick, dark brows stood out in stark contrast with his white wig. “Did you pass this information to the General?”

“I… no. He would not believe me. I have only her word. She could not provide anything more substantial.” A wall that forever remained his enemy.

The Frenchman pursed his lips, then sadly shook his head. “My friend, I wish to believe you,” he said lowly, placing a hand on Laurens’ shoulder, “but if our General has difficulty taking the word of your woman,” Hamilton let out a snort, “and I am sure you provided the General more information than you have given us, then I am afraid I must place my trust in the wisdom of our esteemed General.”

He clutched Laurens’ shoulder tighter, his face becoming dearly earnest. “Please do not think I regard you any less of a friend.”

And Laurens couldn’t blame the man. Not only because logic prevailed in Lafayette’s argument, but also because he couldn’t shake the vision of the look of pure hurt he had seen on his friend’s face when the man had realised who he was aiming his firelock at.

Hamilton looked between the taller men and set his face. “I must disagree,” he said, his eyes hard. “I believe you, Laurens. I don’t fault you for your doubt, Gilbert, but I’ve never known John to pass information—especially not some of this calibre— off lightly.” Hamilton tapped his cheek in thought, drawing Laurens’ attention to the smattering of freckles. They looked more pronounced in the half light, a disparity on pale skin. Calloused, warm skin, and soft hair. _Paper and wheat. Traitor and coward_. Laurens quickly pushed the thought away.

When Alexander had finished his brief contemplation, he nodded. “If you believe this to be the case, then I trust your judgment. Therefore, if this information is indeed true,” Hamilton continued, “then we shall have to keep Lee under close watch.”

“Thank you, Alexander,” Laurens replied. It came out softer than he had intended.

Lafayette now looked conflicted. The man had become swayed by Hamilton’s short and sharp conviction, but was now caught between two loyalties.

“Yes… I suppose that is true of Laurens, but I…”

Laurens decided to relieve his burden. If he could prove Lee’s retreat at the right moment by getting the Marquis up the hill, then Lafayette’s messenger to Washington could make good enough time to catch and rally Lee’s troops. All he needed was Lafayette’s consideration, which he had won. It was not at all because he wished to make up for his transgression.

“At ease, my dear Marquis. I understand your hesitation,” Laurens said. “Perhaps you and I should stay together. You’ll be stationed at a good enough height to see Lee’s movements in the battle.” He turned to Hamilton but the man was already nodding.

“I will attach myself to Lee, not to worry. He should be close enough to where Washington will hold his lines that I can ride to the General’s side, should Lee turn against us.” Hamilton would never be able to convince Washington on his own, but now perhaps with Lafayette’s messenger, he wouldn’t have to.

Lafayette blinked, his long eyelashes making him look rather owlish. “Well, if you are sure…”

\--

 

Riding to the field, side by side with Lafayette, and listening Frenchman happily expressing his wishes for the battle, felt egregiously wrong to Laurens.

It did not feel right that the last loop had been washed from all memory, living and dead, save his own. More so, it was astounding, even to Laurens himself, that his faked betrayal affected him so deeply, yet it did. He had never said anything that would have put the Continentals in jeopardy nor had he felt any amount of pride in wearing a redcoat, yet it felt like guilt had been carved into his face and along the lines of his arms. It touched on things inside of him that made him afraid – doubts that had been buried deep under layers of fastidious denial. What if his father had raised him as a staunch loyalist? What if he had been convinced of the British cause whilst in England? What if things, small things, seemingly meaningless things, had gone differently and he _had_ gone on to wear the redcoat, the golden epaulettes, and the gilded gorget, with pride?

How easy would it have been to wear that red coat and mean it? If things have gone differently, how easy would it have been to aim his pistol at the Marquis de Lafayette and pull the trigger without any feeling at all?

“Lafayette,” he called lowly, drawing the man away from their increasingly one-sided conversation.

“Gilbert,” Laurens corrected. His tongue felt dry in his mouth. Lafayette went quiet at the sound of his name, and turned to Laurens as they rode, his face creased with worry in his own sweet way.

“I… I must apologise to you,” Laurens said. The image of Lafayette’s betrayed face burned in his mind.

“Whatever for?” Lafayette replied softly.

“I feel that I haven’t been as much a friend to you, as you have to me. You have treated me as a valued friend, and you deserve more than I have given in return. For that, I am sorry.”

Lafayette smiled, gentle and kind, neither of which Laurens felt he deserved. How could a man be so plainly compassionate? So honourable and giving? Lafayette made it seem effortless and natural, that perhaps there was some truth in the innate superiority of the aristocracy that the European nobility loved to remind the lesser mortals. Or perhaps that was simply Gilbert du Motier. The thought of willingly killing such a creature made him feel ill all over again.

“My friend, you have shown me more kindness and have been more welcoming than I think you know. I was alone when I came to America, but you have made me feel wanted here, and for that I am forever indebted to you.” He reached across to grab Laurens’ hand and squeezed it warmly. “Do not say you are sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

 _If only you knew,_ John thought sadly. But instead he said, “thank you, my dear Marquis,” and heartfully meant it.

Lafayette released him and fell silent, but the way he chewed his lip implied that their conversation was not over.

“Regarding General Lee,” he said finally, stroking Poivre’s mane as the horse bobbed along. “Perhaps, I was… quick in my dismissal of your agent’s information. Alexander was right, I don’t believe you would say these things with no reason. I should have considered it more.”

He looked at Laurens. “You must think me young and naïve to so strongly side with whatever our General thinks.”

Lafayette _was_ only twenty years old, not that much older than a boy, though he had told Laurens he had been a commissioned officer since the age of three and ten. John did not begrudge him for his loyalty to Washington, rather he felt a surge of affection.

“It’s alright,” Laurens replied, voice warm. “You have a right to distrust it. I am not even fully sure of its truth myself. But she would not lie, I have known her and her family for a long while. She is an honest girl.”

Lafayette nodded. “I trust you, mon cher copain. And I will follow you in whatever manner you think is best to deal with Lee.” He puffed his chest, his smile growing into a toothy grin. “Now, I believe we have a battle to win, yes?”

Laurens returned his grin. This could be it. If they were victorious, then this could be the last loop he would have to suffer. Laurens ached to believe it.

“Yes, we do.”

\--

Keeping Lafayette on the hill proved impossible. Laurens hadn’t even opened his mouth to the suggestion they remain on high ground, before Lafayette had raced off to follow his troops. Laurens had rode with him, keeping close and more importantly – keeping an eye eastward. Lee’s troops could hardly be seen through the thin scoop of trees that separated them, but he persisted, straining his ears for any hint.

If nothing else could be said about the man, Lafayette’s enthusiasm was infectious. When he gave himself to the fight— and the Frenchman truly did— Laurens couldn’t help but join him. It was not all that different from fighting with Alexander, though with Hamilton, the both of them incited each other toward savagery. Lafayette did not give himself over to the bloodlust, though Laurens still found himself slipping into it like an old pair of shoes. No, Lafayette’s head appeared to remain sharp and focused, equal parts of himself given to thwarting the enemy and provoking his own troops in that grand, irrevocably French manner of his. He was a natural at leadership in the way that Laurens struggled to be.

As the lines of Continentals and British pushed closer together in the marshy environment, Laurens found himself glancing over frequently to the enemy’s flank. There was no one tucked in-between the first and second lines, the air was empty save for the waft of gun smoke. And yet, he expected to find a ghost there; a sandy-haired man with his rifle aimed far too high, in a bloody red coat that fitted him far too comfortably for his liking. The crawling at John’s neck killed the small amount of cheer that had found a home in his chest, and he grimaced. Shaking himself, he pushed away the drumbeat that began a procession in his head. _Not the time._

The lines clashed, and the men of the forward abandoned their bullets for their bayonets. He and Lafayette were with them, pistols aimed and ready, rapiers arching left and right. Laurens pulled his sword out of a man and grit his teeth at the sudden, sharp pain in his shoulder. The old wound from Germantown had a habit of playing up now and again. He pressed on, turning to skewer another redcoat within his reach.

The two of them struggled together, though Laurens often pulled himself away, looking eastward. It’s was almost time, and Lee would be moving soon _._ He had to get the Marquis up the hill and give the man visual proof of Lee’s traitorous disposition. There was no more time to waste here in the assault; his bloodlust had been more than sated with the sacrifices so willingly given to him.

He pushed Josephine through the muddy marsh that had become only more slippery and churned in the assault. She whinnied as she stumbled to Lafayette’s stallion, the man saddled upon Poivre had his rifle in hand once again and was aiming with careful precision. Although the forward line had abandoned their rifles, bullets still rained from the men further back. Laurens could hear them whistle past and strike the ground at their feet.

“Lafayette,” he shouted over the roar of battle, clutching Josephine’s reins tighter as she displayed an unusual amount of nervousness. “We must get to higher ground! Lee will be moving soon!”

Lafayette lowered his rifle, and put a hand to his ear. Laurens tried again, louder this time, “We must move up the hill, _now!”_

The sharp and loud burst of a rifle sounded nearby, causing both of their horses to rear and champ at their bits. Lafayette blanched in surprise, his face paling, as he was suddenly almost unsaddled. He grasped wildly at Poivre’s mane with both hands, dropping his rifle to the slick beneath them. The Frenchman’s face contorted in confusion, and he winced again, sweeping his eyes out to the battle.

Laurens drew the man’s attention back as he motioned to the hill with his hand, _we cannot stay here any longer._ Luck was on his side, as Lafayette nodded, having finally understood him, and haphazardly wheeled his horse toward the slope. Josephine was only too happy to start off in a gallop, leaving the other beast to thunder along behind her.

The flat Lafayette’s contingents fought on stretched a ways from the hill, which required some manoeuvring through dips of murky water hidden by patches of long, shifting grass. But they soon came to a hobble of trees, marking the beginning of the ascent. The sounds of battle, while still heard, had fallen away enough for Laurens to clearly hear the uncertainty in Lafayette’s voice.

“Laurens?” He called. Laurens pulled on his reins, slowing Josephine to a stop and looked behind him. Lafayette had halted a few paces away. His face was even paler than it had been moments before, and he was glancing down at himself. “I-I think I’ve been shot,” he said unsteadily.

Ice instantly filled Laurens’ belly. How? When? They were far enough away from the fighting men that aiming would prove difficult and bullets weaker.

 _The gunshot as we left,_ he realised with horror.

His motions felt clumsy as he swung off his mare and walked the space separating them. When he came closer, he saw that it was Lafayette’s right leg, the white of his breeches rapidly turning crimson. Cruelly, it was the same leg the man had injured at Brandywine, just the previous year. The bullet hole was higher than the old wound had been, and at an odd angle. Lafayette winced as he tried to lean over to get a better look. “I cannot see it properly, how bad is it?”

Laurens picked at the pant-leg gingerly, but even a small sight of the wound he was given by lifting up the fabric made him want to gag. _Oh God._ How could Lafayette appear so calm? Did he even feel the true extent of it? “Let me take a closer look,” he said, keeping his voice steady. “Watch the field, we don’t want anyone to come upon us. I’ll need to rip your breeches.” He could see the sweat beginning to bead on the man’s temples, but Lafayette nodded and looked to the horizon.

Laurens pinched and tore the fabric back, revealing the true extent of the wound to the light of day. He breathed sharply in through his nose. It was even worse than he had expected.

Whoever had shot the Marquis must have indeed been close, because the injury was large and messy. Through the gore of torn skin, muscle and sinew he could clearly see white bone – pieces of it, rather. The force of the bullet had shattered it almost completely. How Lafayette had managed to ride as far as he did by himself was an utter mystery. Blood was oozing from the wound worryingly fast, and Laurens pulled the fabric back over and pushed at it with a hand to try and staunch the flow. Lafayette hissed in pain, wobbling in his saddle.

“I’m sorry, but you’re losing blood,” Laurens said. He motioned with his hand toward the sash tied at the Frenchman’s waist, “we need to try and stop the bleeding. Quickly.”

“Yes,” Lafayette said, but it was barely above a whisper. He picked at the knot of the sash drunkenly, making a few attempts before he successfully pulled the cloth away and handed it to Laurens. The ice in John’s belly spread to his limbs, and the drum in his head beat a tempo that grew in strength. They would be fine. They just needed to get Lafayette to a physician. This wound would heal like the other. _Oh God, oh God help me._

“Is it alright?” Lafayette’s breathing was laboured, but his face was earnest as he looked down to where Laurens shakily tied off the tourniquet.

“It will be fine,” he assured him.

Laurens took Lafayette’s reins and pulled him up the rest of the way as fast as he was able. The Marquis held onto the horn of his saddled, curled over, and did not say anything more as he let himself be lead. Further up the uneven slope, some soldiers, lower ranking officers included amongst the higher, raced over to them when they approached, helping both men from their horses.

Although Laurens hardly needed their help, Lafayette let out a cry as he was lowered to the ground by several men. Like spilt poison, crimson had snuck up almost to his waist, and his face had become ghastly.

Laurens marched several paces, and pulled over the nearest man in reach, pointing out to where the rest of the army lay out on the field stretching east. “You, take a horse, and quickly get to General Washington! Tell him of the Marquis’ condition and that he requires urgent medical attention.” They had no time to lose. He would not, he _could not_ lose Lafayette.

_This is could be the last day._

“But, sir,” the man said, shaking his head. “I’m no messenger. That’s Holt. He’s from around these parts. He knows the fastest way.”

 _I don’t care, my friend is dying!_ Laurens wanted to shout. Fingers creeping and crawling at his neck dug their claws in.

“We’ve not got the time, man!” he growled in the soldier’s face. “I need you to tell Washington of the Marquis’ injury,” he grabbed the lapels of the man’s uniform and pulled him close, “and if you see _any_ odd activity from the troops as you ride down to the field, especially those under General Lee, you _tell General Washington._ Do you understand me?”

The soldier grew fearful under Laurens’ onslaught – anger and rage born from a suffocating desperation. “Y-yes, Colonel!”

Laurens released him, and coarsely pushed him toward the awaiting horse held by a rifleman. He watched as the messenger whipped the beast into a gallop across the field, before hurriedly turning back to Lafayette.

\--

Victory was theirs, if it could be truly called such a thing. It was a bitter-sweet, pyrrhic victory at most; the Marquis de Lafayette was simply one wounded man among far, far too many. But Laurens’ man had gotten through, and aided Hamilton’s ruthless declamation just as Laurens hoped he would. Better Lee was hanged on the spot, but Washington handed him the court martial. Laurens would see this trial, he was sure of it.

Washington and Hamilton had come with the field surgeon who had taken one look at Lafayette’s wound and grimaced, before he beckoned a cart over to carry the Major-General. Laurens watched as Washington had gripped the surgeon by the arm, and murmured in his ear. The man, who couldn’t be older than his mid-thirties, had set his face against the General and returned a few words then moved to swing himself onto his horse, and follow the cart back to camp.

_We need to get him back to camp, General. All is not lost, but we must hurry._

That hadn’t given Laurens as much relief as it ought to have. Hamilton had leaned over the cart and spoken a few words to the dazed Marquis, his face anxious, before he had followed Laurens back to camp, silent and wringing the reins in his hands. Laurens hadn’t felt like speaking much, himself.

The camp was a sorry sight, though less grim than Laurens felt. Infantry men sat around, nursing their hastily bandaged wounds that were tended to by equally exhausted women. But they laughed with one another, trading tired jokes made fresh in their relief. The day was won. They had beaten back the British. A victory was still a victory.

Laurens had accomplished his part in it, but the victory tasted like ashes in his mouth.

The Frenchman was quickly bundled from the cart and into the sanctuary of the field hospital’s tent. Laurens stood near the entrance of the marquee with some of the other aides after having relieved Josephine to Shrewsbury, who had looked at him with no sympathy at all. Washington stood with them, his face stoic, but his brow taut in obvious worry. The General wanted to go in, wanted to see that his adoptive son was doing well, but his duty called to him. The battle may have been won, but the commander could not rest just yet, not with officers to speak to and reports to compile.

Laurens stepped up to his side. “Your Excellency,” he addressed Washington. The memory of the man’s cold and empty stare by candlelight returned to him, unbidden. “I was by Lafayette’s side when he was wounded, and,” _I feel responsible for it,_ “I would stay at his side as the surgeons see to him. If I have your permission. I will report to you once he is seen through this.”

Washington regarded him, rolling his jaw, but he eventually nodded, eyes softening. “Thank you, Colonel Laurens,” he replied. “That would be greatly appreciated.”

With a look to the other aides, he jerked his head toward the courthouse and set off, his overcoat whipping up behind him. Washington was not the only one with more work forthcoming and his staff followed at his heels, though not without shooting worried looks to the tent. Hamilton remained behind.

“I’m staying,” he said at John’s look.

“Alexander…” Laurens started, but Hamilton jutted his chin out, eyes fierce.

“He is my friend too, John.”

“I know, but—“

“You cannot stop me from being here, do not think I don’t know that you’re trying.”

“Alexander, Lafa—“

“He is my _friend,_ Laurens.”

“And it is _my fault that Lafayette is wounded!”_ Laurens shouted, stunning Alexander and himself into silence. “It is _my_ fault,” he whispered this time, voice ragged. A chaos of emotions bubbled thickly under his skin. He had made a mistake somewhere. He could have executed his plan better. He could have done _something, God, something,_ to save his friend from having to fight for what was rightfully his. There was no getting around it, or hiding from it; Gilbert would carry John’s mistake for the rest of his life. Tomorrow could be the twenty-ninth, and Lafayette will have paid the price for it.

“Please, Alexander,” Laurens said, pressing his fingers into his eyelids. “It needs to be me. Only me. I owe him this.”

He looked up when he felt a presence in front of him. Hamilton had a hand raised to him, almost touching his cheek, but not quite. He watched as the smaller man swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing under his thin neck. When he clenched his outstretched hand into a fist, and pulled away, Laurens felt a strange sense of disappointment among the turmoil.

“Fine,” Hamilton said, his voice just as edged with grit. He backed away and looked toward the courthouse. The man did not want to go, he did not want to write letters and pretend that his friend was not suffering a small distance away.

“Take care of Gilbert,” he said shortly, and begun to trudge away, his shoulders hunched.

“Alex,” John called to his back. Alexander halted, and looked wearily over his shoulder.

“I’ll see him through this,” John promised. The small brightness he saw grow in Alexander’s gaze was enough to chip away at some of the fear gnawing at his gut.

Laurens entered the tent, his throat feeling thick. Men milled around in the small space, directed by the surgeon to obtain this and that. Lafayette had been set down on a hard wood table, awake but trembling terribly. He let out a child-like noise from the back of his throat when he saw Laurens move to his side.

“John, what is going on? They not talk to me. They just tell— they just say things fine.” His weak voice was slurred, and his grasp of English was suffering in his pained state. The man’s brown eyes drooped but were fearful as they locked onto Laurens’ face. He clutched the Marquis’ hand tightly, it was cool.

“I don’t know, my friend, but I promise to find out.”

He released the Marquis with reluctance. The surgeon had since moved to shoo some of the men out of the tent, demanding his own space, though it was not a courtesy he extended to Laurens as he approached.

“Doctor…”

“Tilley,” the man supplied, wiping some of the crusted blood from his hands with a rag. Laurens felt the itch of it on his own.

“Doctor Tilley, please, the Major-General is lying on your table and neither he nor I know what is to happen.” Laurens was amazed he was able to keep his voice so even. “How is he? What are the extent of his injuries?”

The surgeon looked to his patient, and then pulled Laurens to the side. “I am afraid it is not good,” he said, lowering his voice. “The bullet not only shattered the bone, but the ball itself also broke apart in the wound. We have stemmed the flow of blood by sealing some of the wound, but,” The man hesitated and licked his lips. “I must take the leg,” he finished, staring Laurens in the eye.

Icy fear returned to Laurens’ veins in full force. “But, can you not do something? Can it not mend?”

The surgeon sighed. “I cannot stitch bone together, Colonel. Nor can I replace the parts that are missing. _Nor_ can I allow the wound to fester because pieces of shrapnel are still stuck inside it, which are so small that the eye cannot see them. If the Major-General is to survive, I _must_ take the leg.” He pursed his lips. He looked like he wanted to say much more, but stopped himself.

“I will require your help,” he said, and moved away to prepare his tools.

Laurens clutched the back of a chair for support. No, this could not be how this ended. This _couldn’t_. _Oh God, what have I done?_ Where was the fairness in this? The world had played on him a cruel joke for his achievement. _Gilbert, my friend, you do not deserve this._

His hands shook as he returned to Lafayette. “John? What he say?” The Frenchman asked, panicked no doubt by the pained expression on Laurens’ face. Lafayette’s breathing became more rapid as Tilley handed over to Laurens a piece of board, a deranged looking metal contraption clenched in his other fist. The other men in the tent hung back, looking on grimly. Some prepared themselves, rolling their sleeves back while others shrugged off their coats for the coming struggle.

“What is that?” Lafayette whispered, eyeing the vice. He flicked his gaze back to Laurens. “John?”

“Your leg, Gilbert,” Laurens spoke. His throat had become raw in its blocked state; the words were hard to form. “The surgeon must take your leg. It’s too damaged. It won’t heal.”

“No!” Lafayette cried hoarsely, pushing himself up with what little strength he had. Laurens reached over and held his shoulders, warding off the other men, who moved to help, with a look. Lafayette clung to the front of his uniform, his trembling had only worsened as his fingers fumbled around Laurens’ buttons. “ _Please._ Ils ne peuvent pas prendre mon jambe. Je ne peux pas être un homme invalide.”

“Je suis désolé, mon ami,” _I made a mistake. I should have gotten you off that field sooner._  “Nous devons le faire, ou vous  _mourrez_ ”

Tears slipped down Lafayette’s cheeks and he dropped himself to the table, unable to hold himself up any longer. His wig had come loose at his hairline, and tuffs of vibrant red hair peeked out from under the powdered headdress, so different from what his dark brows suggested. Laurens realised that he had never seen Lafayette’s true colouring before now.

“ _Please,”_ Lafayette whispered again weakly. His face was so pale, the red and blue veins created a map under his skin. “Adrienne cannot have a crippled mari… mon grandfather,” he clenched his eyes shut before opening them again to look at John. “He _cannot_ have a crippled grandson. Le cour… ma famille. Ils vont nous ridiculiser. Ils ridiculisent déjà ma femme.”

A terrible ache struck deep into Laurens’ heart, but he opened his hand, showing Lafayette the piece of board. “We have to.”

Finally, _finally_ after a terse moment in which Lafayette clenched his jaw, his nostrils flaring in contemplation of his plight, the Frenchman jerked his head in a small nod, and accepted the board between his teeth with strained hisses of breath.

The surgeon and his helpers looked staunchly uncomfortable as they moved into position, cutting away the Marquis’ breeches to above his charred wound. Laurens was forced to move back as Tilley sidled up next to him to clamp the iron tourniquet around Lafayette’s leg. He nodded to John solemnly, silently inviting him to hold the Marquis’ shoulders. Laurens gave only one hand to the job, using his other to grasp Gilbert’s hand tightly once again where he had curled it into his chest. He would not play the part of the cold butcher.

Twenty years from now, if he was released from the hellish loop of this day, John thought that he would still be able to hear Lafayette’s screams, as his leg was sawn away, with utter clarity. He could not look at the gore, though his hand and front became splattered with fresh blood. Instead he whispered small nothings to Lafayette, none of which helped either man, and none of which relieved the guilt that cut deeper and deeper into Laurens’ chest with each grating sound. Helpers held the Marquis down from all sides, but eventually Lafayette became so exhausted he could no longer fight them, and by the end most had fled the tent, some likely to relieve their stomachs.

Soon too, the screams dulled into whimpers, and then into soft chuffs as the air was pushed from Lafayette’s lungs by his convulsing. His teeth had clenched the board hard enough that marks had been cut into the wood. Laurens listened to the small sounds from where he ended up knelt on the ground next to the table, forehead resting against Lafayette’s cheek, hand still grasped in the Frenchman’s. There was a wetness on his brow, though whose it was, he did not know.

Fingers slackening in his grip was what belatedly caused him to look up. Lafayette, utterly exhausted, had passed out from his ordeal, his eyes only half closed. The trembling had finally stopped, and John felt a small iota of relief for his friend. _God knows he deserves rest,_ he thought as he stumbled to his feet and took the dented board from the man’s mouth. He was careful not to look below Lafayette’s waist.

Only the surgeon remained with him in the marquee now, but he was not distracted by Laurens’ movement, instead still intensely focused on his patient. Tilley’s angular face had oddly slackened and his red fingers were pressed to his lips. Worrying his lip, he glossed a hand to pause over Lafayette’s mouth then moved down to press at his neck. After a beat, Laurens heard him draw a long, low breath.

“Colonel,” a gruff voice called to him carefully. Laurens looked from Lafayette’s exhausted body to the surgeon standing across the table. Tilley was gazing at him sadly from underneath his thick brow. “I am sorry sir.” He slowly shook his head. “But it seems that the Marquis… he is no longer with us.”

“The shock, coupled with the blood loss may have been too much for the man.” He signed the cross above his heart. “God rest his soul.”

Laurens gazed down at the man pliant before them. Nonsense. Lafayette had simply passed out. Yes, he _had_ lost a lot of blood but…

_He had also stopped breathing._

The floor seemed to drop out from underneath him. No, this could not _happen_. This had not happened before, not in anything John had tried. Lafayette was not supposed to die, the man had never died. He scoured Lafayette’s face. His friend’s eyes were glassy beneath the half-lids as they stared up blankly to the canvas roof. He was silent in a way only the dead could achieve.

_In a way only the dead could achieve._

_No_. _No!_

_This was supposed to be the last day!_

John frantically bent over the table and hovered his hands above Gilbert’s cheeks, terrified to touch the pallid skin. This could not happen, he had been fine, everything had been going well, this could not _happen_. Laurens had done something wrong, a mistake. It was only a mistake. The Marquis did not react at all to his nearness, only continued to look up blankly, what little remaining redness seeping from his lips until they were pale and blue. Laurens had never seen him so still. It wasn’t right.

_It’s my fault._

“Sir?” Tilley gently touched his shoulder, trying to draw him from Lafayette’s body. “I could send the news to General Washington, I am sure he would like to know immediately.”

He had promised. He had promised Washington that he would stay by Lafayette’s side. He had promised Alexander that he would see their friend through this. He had failed.

“No,” John whispered, voice trembling. “It’s my fa— my duty. I should be the one.”

He looked down at his hands. They were as stained with as much flaking red as the front of his uniform. He could feel the itch of it everywhere on his skin. _I’m so sorry, my friend. I’m so sorry. I made a mistake._

A haze descended over him as he forced his body from the medical tent, leaving his friend to cool under Tilley’s watchful gaze. Laurens movements felt mechanical; like the small soldier made from gears that Jemmy used to make march across the kitchen floor. Left, right, left right. Out of the tent, through the rows, and across the way to the courthouse.

The door to the hall arrived too quickly. Laurens was not ready, but his hand pushed the half-open door away without his permission. The low chatter in the room cut short as Laurens entered, the faces of Washington’s staff upon him. The General himself slowly stood from his seat, face expressionless, eyes anything but.

“The Marquis de Lafayette has died of his injury,” he forced the words out, each one rubbing his throat raw.

Gasps and cries erupted around the room. Laurens only felt numb to them.

He was vaguely aware of the large body that roughly pushed past him and out into the open, boots thumping loudly on the steps. Laurens walked; the same mechanical strides that bought him to the courthouse, bought him over to the one man he needed to be near.

Alexander was leaning back against his desk, hanging onto its edge in a white-knuckled grip, his spine bent like an old, world-weary man’s. He looked up when John approached. His face had grown pale, and his eyes red-rimmed and moist.

“It was the shock,” Laurens choked, as he stopped in front of the smaller man, his head hanging. “I couldn’t do anything. The surgeon… had to take his leg. But it was too much.”

“He’s gone?” Alexander asked quietly, his tone begging John to say otherwise. But what else could he possibly say? Lafayette had died. It was simple and callous and the truth.

“He’s gone.”

“Oh, _God_ ,” Alexander moaned, covering his face with a shaking hand. Laurens could hear him repeat the words softly under his breath as his shoulders began to tremble. He sorely wished to reach out and draw the man to his breast, not only for Alexander’s sake, but also his own.

His fault. His mistake. His duty. His guilt. _His, his, his._ Lafayette was dead. Lafayette was _dead._ Kind, compassionate Lafayette. Proud, brave Lafayette. _You killed him,_ his mind accused. The fingers of that looming despair tore at his neck and Laurens felt himself standing on a precipice, the yawning void below him. _You killed him, your negligence killed him, and your mistake killed him. Tomorrow, it will be the twenty-ninth of June and your hands will still be red._

 _No!_ This could not be it. This could not be how it ended. This was no victory, this was only cruelty, harsh and cold. This could not be how this day ended.

Laurens could fix this.

The day was not over yet, he could still _fix this_.

John swung his head around, looking the room over. On the far side, his gaze found a mess of abandoned weaponry: rifles, knives, and several pistols belonging to the aides that had been left on the table, as the men had unloaded themselves to work on some latent missives before they could finally return to their tents to rest.

Laurens marched over to the table, scanning the guns.

“Laurens… what are you doing?”

A flintlock pistol sat near the front, and he picked it up, turning it over in his hand. Some powder still remained in the lock, but a good shake sent the black residue to the ground, leaving the mechanism mostly clear.

“What is he doing?”

Laurens ignored the shuffling behind him as he rooted around for a cartridge packet in his pocket. He had abandoned his pouch and powder horn upon return to camp, but had stuffed some in his breeches prior to the battle just in case. They would be useful now. He could fix this.

“He’s doing something with the guns.”

Ripping the paper with his teeth, he tapped some of the powder into the open lock, then flicked it closed with a thumb, and pushed the ball, remaining gunpowder, and paper into the opening of the barrel, before unhooking the rod underneath to pack the materials to the pistol’s base. The gun was heavier with the ball, and Laurens weighed it in his palm. Occasionally over the years he had morbidly wondered what the act would be like. The stain of sin had quickly washed those thoughts away. Now God would have to forgive him out of necessity.

It would be fine. Lafayette would live. Tomorrow would not be the twenty-ninth, and he could fix this.

When Laurens turned back to the rest of the room, he found most of the aides on their feet, looking at him curiously. Alexander was closest behind him, the skin under his eyes red and raw, and strands of his hair were loose like he had been running a hand through it.

The curiosity quickly transformed into horror when they saw the loaded pistol he held in his hand. The room exploded into action. Shouts were raised as five men lunged from behind their desks and loud _cracks_ echoed throughout the room as their chairs crashed against the floorboards.

Trumbull had his hands in front of him, flicking his fingers like Laurens was some kind of frightened horse. McHenry was in a similar state, babbling at him to put the gun down as he slowly edged towards him from the side. They thought he was going to aim at one of them, John realised. Guilt stabbed between his ribs. He should do this quickly.

“John, what are you _doing_?! _No!”_

Alexander’s hysterical cry cut through the shouting which only grew louder as Laurens pressed the barrel of the pistol to his temple. Hamilton’s face was starkly white and openly terrified; he stumbled forward, hands reaching desperately for the pistol. A large part of Laurens was eternally grateful that Alexander would not remember what he was about to do.

He leaned back in courtesy so his fellow aides would not be as affected by the blast.

“I will fix this,” John assured them, and pulled the trigger.


	9. Chapter 9

Beams of roaming sunlight cut through the air of the tent from gaps in the canvas, which shifted noiselessly in the morning breeze. Lafayette opened his eyes to the quiet when he could no longer ignore the brazenness of them on his face. He blinked, groaning under the weight of the smothering humidity. The nightly heat had made him throw off the thin blankets, as it had nearly every night since the summer began, though it hardly helped. The stickiness was abrasive and irritating, this climate imitated the throes of southern France far too much for his northern sensibilities. 

He rubbed away some of the sweat that had gathered on his collarbone, and watched as motes drifted through the air like summer snowflakes. Though he woke quickly, Lafayette found he had no wish to raise himself from his bunk and dress. To say he was content to lay there would be a lie, and pathetic one at best, but the notion of readying himself to face the day and all it held, was so much worse than the deception that he was at some sort of peace. He had an utterly legitimate reason to not wish to get out of bed. Dishonesty or truth, it hardly mattered. After all, what man would condemn another who had just lost one of his dearest friends?

Gilbert drew a shaky breath. It felt as if his heart had been torn open all over again. He knew the danger, the bloody reality of war and battle. He had known it since a child, since his father was struck down by a cannon before he could even walk on his own. But knowing a truth, and living it were two very different things. This living _hurt_. It ached something fierce; a hollow in his breast that itched and burned and poisoned everything around it; and try as he might, he could not scratch it out. How could one possibly go on so easily, when it felt like a vital piece had gone astray? How could one become comfortable with the knowledge that it would never be returned, again and again? It felt like Lafayette was being chipped away, piece by piece. He wiped away the moisture gathering in his eyes with the back of his hand.

Now Gilbert had to become comfortable with the knowledge that his dear friend John Laurens was gone.

Laurens, the stupid man. The stupid, _brave_ man who had so suddenly pushed his horse in front of Lafayette’s on the battlefield, and took the bullet that had been meant for him. The man who, all that day had been acting in a way Lafayette had never seen him; like he had become possessed by a crazed need that he would not divulge – not to Lafayette, nor to Hamilton who had looked upon the man with just as much worry as he. Laurens had become almost unrecognisable, even compared to the day previous. He directed them, but he would not speak his mind. He was suddenly the man that seemed to know their actions better than they did. The man who, when he did speak, spoke with so much authority and conviction that Lafayette had felt compelled to follow him, more out of deep seated concern for his friend, than fear of reprisal.

Laurens, the man who had looked _happy_ as he had clutched Lafayette’s front, his waistcoat turning a horrible red from the bullet in his back. The stupid, idiot man who had smiled, and wiped away Lafayette’s tears with a weak hand from where they had fallen together in the slick mud. Who had told him not to worry. Who had told him that everything would be alright. He had fixed it, John said, had whispered the words softly, and laid his head in the crook of Lafayette’s neck with a long sigh. And then… he had died. Just like that. No screaming, no clawing at the air, no grand speeches, no fighting to draw another breath, to live another day like the princely heroes of old. John had simply slipped away in the breeze that gently shook the tall, willowy pines.

And Lafayette had clutched at him, tears spilling down his cheeks. He had threaded a hand through the man’s soft, sandy hair and held him as close as he was able, until eventually he was forced to his feet by Continental men and dragged up the hill.

They had not touched John. Lafayette would not allow them to. It was _he_ who had been with him as John had died, and it would be _him_ who bought down John’s body from the battlefield. When he had been given word of Lee’s premature retreat, then Lafayette had all the more reason to place one of the Lieutenant-Colonels in temporary charge, and ride with Laurens’ cold body in the saddle with several of his men, so that his friend may be safe, away from the vultures that skulked around the edges of the field.

Gilbert kicked at the blanket wrapped around his leg, and _breathed._ Could he be forgiven for staying a while longer? He did not want to get up, but now duty had begun her siren call. He was nothing, if not powerless to the song, even if at the moment he wished to drown beneath the waves rather than be dashed upon the rocks. With a weary sigh and a heave, he pushed his lean body to sit up on the bunk. _Too lean,_ he heard a voice say from the depths of his mind. It sounded suspiciously similar to his grandmother’s.

 _Already, I will be late_ , he thought as he stiffly padded over to the washbowl. The water, while warm, was a relief to his temples and the salt that irritated the skin under his eyes. Rubbing the cloth over his face, he moved down under his chin, and swept the back of his neck. He could still feel the phantom slick of mud on his cheek, no matter how hard he scrubbed at it. Likewise, the oil and sweat clung to his skin, mixing with the imaginary itch of dried blood.

He stripped himself of his damp underthings, careful not to put too much weight on his right leg as he moved. The wound he had received from Brandywine always ached before he was able to stretch his limbs properly and release the tension that had bundled the muscles in his thigh over the course of the night. The puckered skin throbbed as he ran the cloth over it. While not overly large, it was still an ugly thing. Lafayette found he did not mind.

With his waistcoat buttoned, sash tied, and his epaulettes secured, he looked almost presentable in the small looking glass he had been able to procure. Almost. There was a redness under his eyes that he could not seem to be rid of, and his face was pale, glaringly contrasting with his red hair. Lafayette pushed his fingers through the strands. It had grown long since his arrival in America, so much so that it covered the tips of his ears. He had been slack with its upkeep: the last time he had shorn it was on the ship across the Atlantic to keep from the lice, where he had worn a different set of wigs. It had been so long since his hair had been any longer than a quarter inch, he had almost forgotten its colour. Not since he was a boy in Chavaniac had he had it this length.

He brushed a few strands from his forehead and frowned. If he let it grow any more, his wig would prove difficult to keep on. Although, he thought, as he removed the headdress from its box and gathered some pins, perhaps that would not be so bad. The men here rarely wore such things, instead choosing to powder their hair when necessary. Some even walked about in the open with their hair as short as his. Propriety demanded Lafayette’s discretion.

His wig secured, and his gold trimmed hat on his head, Lafayette looked at his reflection once more, pulling and smoothing his lapels. He tried to look proper, tried to look like the Major-General he was supposed to be. He even tried a small smile. It came out as a grimace.

Deciding it was no use, he picked up his rapier, and prepared to face the day. Their war still raged on, unminding of the souls it caught under its heels, and Lafayette had to rage on with it, stumbling as he did. Henry Laurens would have to be written to of his son’s passing. Lafayette stopped, clenching his eyes shut. The pangs in his heart strung their tune again, and he had to pause to breath. Slowly. In and out. The pain had submerged again, somewhat, when he opened his eyes; though a low tempo remained.

A folded envelope on his desk caught his eye, and he picked it up. It was a letter, his one in fact, the same he had given to the messenger to be sent off to Adrienne yesterday. Turning the parchment in his hand, he saw that there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the address he had written, so the reason why it had been returned to his desk was a mystery. _How strange. I suppose I’ll just have to send it again._ Shrugging the matter off, he pocketed it, and started on the journey to the courthouse where more painful conversations lay before him.

He thought that he should probably attend to General Knox before visiting Washington and his aides, but among them was a man Lafayette had to be sure to check on.

Alexander had been in a state worse even than Lafayette’s, since Gilbert had carried John down to the patch where his General and friend had stayed in to oversee their part of the battle. Upon his approach, Alexander had immediately relieved himself of his horse and ran to give assistance. He had only realised that John was more than simply wounded when Lafayette’s face had crumpled and a few fresh tears had slipped from his eyes anew. Alexander stumblingly halted on his course, his expression altering from fierce worry, to openly crushed.

For the first time, he had let men take John’s body and lay it on the ground, whilst he had staggered over to his friend, who could not pull his eyes away from the body in the grass. When Lafayette finally touched him, Alexander had been akin to a puppet whose strings had been cut, and he desperately clutched at the taller man’s arms for support as he wobbled, his knees giving under his weight. He had trembled in Lafayette’s arms, eyes far more free of moisture than the Frenchman’s, but pain, horrible pain— gut-wrenching in sight, was etched deep into the lines of Alexander’s face. He had broken into pieces before him, and Lafayette’s heart had broken with him.

Alexander could not be consoled all night, for he would not let anyone near him after they had returned to camp, not even Lafayette. He had stayed with John’s body alone for a time, then Hamilton had fled, disappearing off into the night. Though he had duties to attend to, Lafayette had ignored them in favour of searching for his friend, but he was nowhere to be found. He was not in the tent he had shared with Laurens, nor any of the other aides’ tents, nor was he among the other officers, or the ordinary men, in the cellar of the courthouse, nor in the stables. Lafayette had even checked with the small gambling ring that had made its home within social underground of the army. He had returned to his own tent after a long night, feebly removed his uniform, and collapsed on his bed, utterly spent.

But he knew Alexander would never dishonour himself with desertion, no matter if the man, whom he probably considered his brother, had died. So Lafayette climbed the steps to the courthouse, and prepared himself to face Hamilton. They, or at least Lafayette, had a letter to write.

He found Hamilton leaning over Washington’s desk, pen in hand, quickly scribbling something with one hand while at the same time, shifting through a stack of papers with the other. His mouth was quirked, and his brow was pulled in concentration, but he did not give off the air of a man who had lost someone dear to him. The tired hunch of his shoulders was the same one he always had, and sometimes complained about in their quieter moments. His face was clear, and his uniform was fastidiously in place, so much so that Lafayette self-consciously straightened his own cuffs.

 _He must not be taking this well at all._ Lafayette could not say that he had explicit experience with the ins and outs of Hamilton’s moods, such a thing would only come with years of intimate friendship, but he did know that Alexander had a habit of shutting himself down and off from others completely. There could be no other explanation for why he was in such an impeccable state.

He looked up when he caught sight of Lafayette’s boots and grinned brightly, throwing down the pen with a flourish. Lafayette frowned. It was even worse than he had thought.

“Good morning, my dear Marquis. I hope you are prepared for the long day ahead,” he said, moving around the desk to lean a hip against its side.

“Yes. Well. I suppose we must all be.”

Hamilton frowned at Lafayette’s response, evidently not expecting such a sombre reaction. He unfolded his arms and leaned to look at the Frenchmen closer. Lafayette shifted uncomfortably.

“Are you alright, Lafayette? You look exhausted. Your eyes are red and your face is quite pale,” he said, squinting.

“Are _you,_ alright, Alexander?” Gilbert countered. “I could not find you last night, after you left— after you left the courthouse. I could not find you anywhere I looked, and I searched most of the night.” He might as well be out with it quickly, otherwise he feared Hamilton would recoil and flee once again. “Mon cher copain, I know this is difficult for you, but it is difficult for me also. Please. Do not shut me out,” he finished, his tone soft, almost begging.

Hamilton only appeared more confused. “Did you check my tent? Laurens and I were finishing our personal letters for most of the night. And difficult? What do you mean? What is difficult for me?”

Lafayette’s heart ached. What hole had Alexander dug himself into that he could not even face the reality of what had happened? He knew Alexander’s denial could reach legendary levels when he wished it to, but this was something else entirely. Lafayette had heard of men going mad with grief, even being committed to homes when they could no longer operate in the public world. He did not think that Hamilton would ever tread this path, but the man looked at Lafayette like he hadn’t the faintest clue what he was saying, like he did not know that John had died at all… God save him, he had just lost one friend, he could not lose another. He would have to tread carefully around Alexander’s fragile state.

“Do not worry,” he assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I… I will deal with this.”

Lafayette looked around the room. The aides worked diligently at their posts, most likely writing to the families of the dead. He sighed, picking up the pen Hamilton had abandoned, and took a sheet of paper that did not look marked.

“Has anyone yet written a personal note Henry Laurens, regarding John?” He asked, eyeing the stack of letters bundled together on Washington’s desk. The addressed names only looked to be officers within the Continental army.

Hamilton pushed away from his perch. “Why would anyone write a personal note to his father, save John himself?”

 _Alexander, please do not do this to me. My heart cannot take it._ “It is in regard to his passing.”

“His passing? Whose passing?” Hamilton now looked incredulous. “Gilbert… is something wrong? You do not seem yourself at all this morning.” He hesitated. “Should I call a physician?”

 _He_ did not seem himself? _Him?_ Perhaps Lafayette should have thought to take his looking glass with him when he walked here, so that Hamilton may regard his own reflection. _He_ was not the one so bundled in his grief that he could no longer discern reality. _Have a care,_ he chided himself viciously. _He is suffering far more than you._

“Who should I speak to then, about John?” He asked, gentler this time. Perhaps the advice of his General would be best at a time like this.

Hamilton looked at the space over his shoulder, and quirked a brow, turning his gaze back to Lafayette. “Perhaps the man himself?”

Gilbert swung around so fast he gave himself whiplash.

He was only vaguely aware that he had dropped his pen as it clattered to the ground. For, entering the hall, his uniform clean and unblemished, his sandy hair pulled back into its usual queue, and his strong roman features looking flushed in the morning heat, was John Laurens. He moved with an ease that injury would never have allowed him; an effortless stride that spoke of a normal, and healthy young man. Laurens passed his gaze absently over the other men in the room as he walked, before he raised his eyes; his unglazed, lively blue eyes and gave a light smile in greeting.

With a cry, Lafayette raced over to him, throwing himself into the slightly shorter man’s embrace and wrapped his arms around him tight. How could this be? How was this possible? Laurens had died, he was sure of it. He had held the man’s cold body in his arms. He had listened as the last wisps of breath left him, and his muscles had slackened. Yet here in front of him, was Laurens, very much alive, very much breathing, and by God, he was _warm._

Laurens let out a _whoosh_ of air as the Frenchman barrelled into him, gripping Lafayette’s arms as he was thrown off balance. But then… he suddenly returned the embrace. Fiercely, even. Laurens wrapped his arms around Lafayette’s waist so tightly that _he_ was the one trapped within the confines man’s arms instead of the other way around. He could feel the man’s fingers digging almost painfully into his back, and Laurens suddenly had his face pressed into Lafayette’s shoulder, his nose smothered against his collarbone. Through the press of their chests thrummed the vibration of a wild heartbeat. A true _heartbeat_ that he could hear as well as feel. God’s mercy, how was this possible?

Laurens only relented when Lafayette pulled back, remembering himself. It did not stop the Frenchman from gripping one of the man’s lapels tightly in his fist.

“I thought—I’m so sorry, but for the life of me, I thought you had died,” Lafayette choked, still reeling. Had yesterday been real at all? Had he simply be living a horrifically vivid dream? But he remembered everything with such clarity: the struggle of holding himself on his horse, the feeling of Washington’s hand on his shoulder as he whispered consoling words in his rumbling voice, the dry taste of a stiff piece of old bread, the terrible ache in his breast as he lay in the dark, waiting for sleep to claim him. Dreams could not conjure that.

An odd expression passed over Laurens face before it suddenly dropped, as if Lafayette had just said the worse thing imaginable. His hands instantly released the Frenchman’s sides like the man had been burned, and he backed away, staring at Lafayette in quiet dismay.

“What… did you say?”

Lafayette flinched in embarrassment. How stupid he must seem to the man, to throw himself at him in such a deranged manner and babble about how he was so sure the living, breathing, completely uninjured man in front of him had died. Fear struck in Lafayette’s belly; perhaps he should be the one committed to a home, not Hamilton.

“It is, uh, it is nothing,” he stammered, his face burning. “I just had— I mean, for some reason I believed that yesterday you had been shot in the back, and I— well, you are fine so I must have…”

“Imagined it?” He finished, staring at Laurens face which had only grown pale and no less horrified.

Lafayette let out a yelp when Laurens suddenly and viciously took hold of his wrist and dragged him from the hall. Hamilton called out in confusion behind them, but John uncharacteristically ignored him, as well as Lafayette’s own baffled questions until he had hauled him outside and around the back of the building. Laurens finally released him when they stood alone together, sheltered from view by the greenery that had claimed the rear of the courthouse.

Laurens cut off Lafayette’s further attempts to speak with a hand raised before him. His face had become guarded, but his eyes still betrayed a hint of fear.

“Gilbert,” he said, carefully. “I want you to tell me what the date is today.”

 _The date_? Why would Laurens want to know the _date_ of all things? He had dragged him out here like a criminal, away from their friends and colleagues, in order to ask him what day it was? Today had taken a turn for the bizarre faster than Lafayette could comprehend it.

“It is the twenty-ninth of June… it is not?”

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Laurens said as he fell back against the warped weatherboards and ran a hand over his face. He looked as if he had been caused physical pain by Lafayette’s simple admission.

“John, isn’t it?” Lafayette tried once more.

“Oh no, my dear Marquis.” He laughed bitterly. “It is the _twenty-eighth_ of June. Again.”

\--

The more Laurens told him, the more fantastical it all seemed. A day that always repeats? It sounded like a story a rural mother told her children to keep them in line, or one of the old tales from a Greek legend – a punishment to men by slighted gods. But such stories, however romantic they sounded, where not real.

Yet Laurens was adamant. And when he recounted the previous day – Lafayette’s dream day – with perfect clarity, Lafayette began to doubt.

“You were crying,” he had said softly. “And I told you it would be alright. I knew what would happen tomorrow, though I didn’t think you would remember.”

“You told me you fixed it,” Lafayette had responded, “but you would not tell me what it was.” Laurens had looked deeply uncomfortable at that, and had quickly changed the subject.

He knew everything perfectly: the way Poivre had jumbled Lafayette in his saddle. The bawdy joke that a grenadier at yelled at his fellow. Even the way Hamilton had looked at him and voiced a sliver of worry that morning.

“I didn’t see a point in telling you everything, only the things you needed to know,” he acquiesced when Lafayette demanded an answer for his strange behaviour. He had never intended to step in and take the bullet meant for Lafayette. It had just happened. Or so he had said.

Lafayette felt himself become more and more distressed with each new morsel of information. John André. Charles Lee’s retreat and betrayal. All of it was becoming harder and harder to deny. God above, what if it _was_ all true? What if he was now stuck here? No, he only had Laurens’ word. Not that he did not trust Laurens but how could such an impossibility exist?

Laurens eventually took pity on him with a pained smile, and handed him a suggestion: live the day out, and see the truth himself. Alexander would no doubt be coming to look for them soon regardless to prepare for the battle. Keep it in the back of his mind, but live the day.  

Now, as he rode on Poivre in the long column which slunk away into the night in retreat, Lafayette found he did not feel any better than when he had woken up this morning. Laurens was alive, something which he was eternally grateful for, but they had lost the battle. How had that happened? The foreboding déjà vu at the eerie sight of one of his men riding to him, and pointing eastward toward General Lee’s troops had only been one more nail to be hammered among those he had been collecting all day. He had sent Holt to where Laurens said he would be with Washington and Hamilton, but he had never received a response, and when the British had gained too much ground for the battle to be feasibly won, he had rode down in anger only to find that his messenger had never made it, and Lee had a mouth full of excuses. Laurens had only looked at him with an expression that said, ‘did I not tell you?’

He pulled his coat tighter around himself to fend off the unlikely chill. Laurens rode beside him, silent most of the time, but he responded to Lafayette when the quiet became too much to bear. The Frenchman had caught him looking more than once; a stricken, guilt-laden look that John quickly covered when Gilbert gave him his full attention. The truth had been revealed, and still he would not speak his mind. It was not so unusual of the man, all things considered. Yet, it still hurt to think his friend did not fully trust him.

The truth. Lafayette turned the concept over in his mind. So much had happened in so small a time. He was still unsure he could fully believe it. A part of him that grew smaller with every moment, nevertheless refused to accept it as reality. It was a frank stubbornness Lafayette did not know he possessed.

A hand touched his forearm. “Wait till tomorrow,” Laurens said, sensing his doubt. Then he had moved off in search of Hamilton to cool some of the vitriol that the smaller man had sent both their ways during the course of the day. Alexander could be prickly when he felt he had been slighted, especially by those he deemed friends. Friends who had been so caught up in each other that they had had little room for the world outside their tumultuous sphere. Losing the battle of Monmouth had only added insult to injury for Alexander. Lafayette felt a stab of guilt. Perhaps it would be best to follow Laurens’ lead and apologise.

Or perhaps he should wait until tomorrow.

 

\-- ~~Loop 2~~ Loop 30--

 

Lafayette awoke to abrasive sunbeams scouring his face.

Adrienne’s folded letter sat on his desk.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to thank everyone for their comments so far, I've honestly been overwhelmed. Thank you so much, and I'm glad you're liking it. A thousand and one essays being due has stumped my progress a bit, but hopefully with those out of the way now, I can get back to writing this again.

\-- Loop 30--

 

When Laurens trekked the path to Lafayette’s tent that morning, he found the canvas strings still knotted from the inside. Perhaps unsurprising as Laurens was unsure how well his friend would take the situation. The last loop had seen Lafayette through a substantial amount within mere hours, and by the end of the day the man was more subdued than Laurens had ever seen him. It could not have been easy, especially when half the morning was spent convinced that he had just lost a friend to the beyond. Dealing with one’s own death was marginally easier in comparison. Laurens shivered. Yes, he knew how Gilbert felt. Seeing him, _feeling_ him alive and healthy in his arms was a balm to the insistent scratching under his skin that had carried him all through the day before.

He paused outside of the tent. The material was thick enough, and the day bright enough that he could not see a silhouette through the canvas. Leaning down, Laurens attempted to catch any glimpse of movement from the sliver of gap near the ground.

“Lafayette?” He called. Nothing at first. He was about to give another try when finally there was a shuffle and the _thump_ of something hard landing on wood. Laurens waited as soft footsteps came next, followed by the waver of the tent as its strings were pulled.

“Come in,” the Frenchman said once he parted the material and held the canvas flap up, allowing Laurens to duck inside. With the tent re-secured, Lafayette staggered past him to perch against the low table set against the side. The man was only half dressed: breeches and boots on, but his shirt was loose around his chest, billowing out like a long coat. It made him look even thinner and lankier than John already knew him to be. He hadn’t realised how much the man’s uniform padded his chest and arms out. Lafayette may have height, but Laurens had comparatively more muscle mass.

More than that, for the first time that he had seen him, Lafayette was sans wig; his vibrant red hair cropped far shorter than a gentleman of the colonies, but longer than was typical of those who wore such headdresses. Laurens was struck by how _normal_ Lafayette appeared without it. It was odd seeing the man underneath all the aristocratic propriety.

“How are you this morning?” He asked, eyeing the opened letter that the Marquis held in his hand.

Lafayette sighed and folded the page up, leaning over to tuck it into the coat that hung from the back of his desk chair. “Truthfully, I do not know what I feel,” he said. “This still does not seem real.”

“You’re taking this better than I did, at the very least. When I woke up and realised, I ran outside and dunked my head into a pail of water.”

That pulled a small laugh from the other man, but then he nodded his head to the bowl of water at his side. “We are not so different then.”

“No, I suppose not,” Laurens acceded with a forced chuckle. This situation had rapidly dissolved into unexpected obscurity once again. Not that the situation had truly become clearer to Laurens in its vagueness, but now he had been blindsided by a previously unfathomable possibility. How was Lafayette even remembering this? What had changed that the man had transformed from a passive spectator, to an active participant? Had he done something to cause it? Was Laurens to blame? Did he damn another man to this hell in his attempt to _fix_ his mistake? The frenzied feeling bubbled under the surface of his mind. Laurens breathed deeply, and pushed it back once again.

“We should talk,” he said.

\--

Lafayette had taken some convincing to abandon the army for the day so that they could converse without the pressing matter of an upcoming battle. The Frenchman’s loyalty to his post was admirable, even if Laurens told him it mattered little. If they lost the battle, the day reset; he knew that, at least. Lafayette had still been worried, even as he shuffled through his luggage for some more civilian looking clothes, all of which looked expensively tailored, just as John’s did. Such finery which would make them stick out like sore thumbs among the poor rural population that surrounded the camp. He had to pull the other man away from his fine stockings and talk him into stealing clothes from the surrounding farms.

“I’m not a thief, Laurens!” Lafayette had said, aghast. Laurens only rolled his eyes, but eventually conceded the Marquis his overcoat, as stifling hot as the man would be. His wig, however, would have to stay. With it he would be recognised as ‘other’ in an instant, without it he just appeared a typical man, albeit one that did not keep to fashions. Lafayette relinquished to his point, but still did not seem pleased.

Subtly outfitting their horses, and walking Laurens’ well-worn track away from the Continental camp, they rode out into the countryside, eventually coming upon a quiet farm (from which, Gilbert abandoned his overcoat in favour of a much lighter jacket. Laurens did not say anything). At Laurens’ direction, they continued east, riding to the township of Shrewsbury a few hours later, where they sequestered themselves within the comfortable confines of the back of a tavern. Now more than ever, Laurens felt like he needed a drink.

The tavern was quiet; not yet the noon rush, though with the battle beginning only a few miles away, the people of the small town probably preferred to keep to themselves today. And so long as Lafayette did not loudly announce himself through his accent, they too should be allowed to keep their own company. Although their table sat below some low-hanging rafters, it was pleasant and secluded. The shutters of the window beside their little table were open, letting in the sweet-smelling summer breeze and cooling the sweat that clung to their temples.

Laurens was nursing his drink, trying to figure a way to approach the topic of their Predicament, when he felt the weight of Lafayette’s gaze. The Frenchman picked at the rim of his own glass, swirling the amber contents but was uninterested in drinking. He finally sighed, and pushed away the glass with a finger.

“So, you did not tell me just how long you have been in this… looping.”

Laurens set aside his own ale. If his count was correct, then today would be the thirtieth time he had lived the twenty-eighth of June. A month had passed, but it felt like years. In retrospect, minutes had passed like hours, creeping sluggishly along only to have never have happened. There was no patience here; there was no expectation of passing weeks. One could not just grin and bear the momentary discomfort in the knowledge that whatever ills were had, they would just pass into memory, and no matter what one did, time would continue to march, whether one wanted it to or not. To be chained to a moment, Laurens found, was agony. And he had, had to bear it in silent solitude. Only that solitude was now no more, and among the poignant guilt Laurens felt for being somehow being responsible for Lafayette’s entrance into torment, so too was there a gasping relief, as if he had finally broken surface after being trapped under a mile of water.

“It has been a month, I think. Though, honestly, it could have been longer. Some days seemed to have passed so slowly, they could have been two,” Laurens said, with a hint of gallows’ humour.

“Oh…”

Lafayette’s face creased, not knowing how to respond. There were things he wanted to say, Laurens could see it, but the Frenchman pulled at loose strings in his mind. Laurens felt the old, familiar stab of guilt in his belly. This should not be Lafayette’s fate. The man had done nothing to deserve the torture of this damned aberration. Yet here he was, looking out the bright window in gnawing contemplation, his expression quickly flickering back and forth from confusion, to worry, to solemnity. He should not be feeling such things, no more than he should have been lying on that wooden table: right leg cut away from his body, his skin an icy and blue. Laurens had brought Lafayette nothing but misery.

It did not matter if Lafayette did not remember it, the sin still stained Laurens’ soul. It was fitting, that even if for all others it had passed into the void, Laurens would remember his crime for the rest of his days. Another one to add to his growing city of Sodom. Mistakes were simply excuses.

And now he had done it again. Laurens had done _something_ to cause Lafayette to be here, though even as he wracked his brain he could not think of what. Had he been too forward? He had tried to guide their actions as effectively as he could, much to Hamilton’s admonishment. The man, though petulant at being ordered around like a dog by a friend and lower ranking officer, had trusted Laurens enough to follow. Though in hindsight, Alexander had shown a small amount of fear at John’s actions. So too, had Lafayette, and regardless of how much Laurens could see that Frenchman had wanted Laurens to stop; to pause and explain himself, he followed the other’s direction. Whatever protests anyone had that day, Laurens had bullied them out of it, hounded by his own mindlessness. How mad he must have looked to them. How mad he must still look to the man sitting across the table. Perhaps this was the reward that was to be given: the condemnation of yet another soul.

What kind of friend was he? In what reality did Lafayette deserve to think of him as such? He had earned no right, and his actions had only proved it. A man ought to appreciate and support his friends. Otherwise, it was only just that he have none at all.

A light touch to the hand he had on the table drew him back to the present. Lafayette, disentangled from his own mind, now looked to him earnestly, eyes full of concern.

“How have you been? Have you been alright?” he asked. “Whatever this is, it could not have been easy for you.”

Laurens felt fondness surge in his heart. Gilbert had just been pulled into something neither men understood, and yet his dear friend had turned from his own confused state, to selflessly extent an olive branch to John’s. Here was a true example of how a friend ought to act.

How _had_ he been? How did he feel? Old despair and melancholy brushed the edges of his mind, but John did not want to face them. A man should have mental fortitude, yet here he was, hardly a stellar example. Fear lurked somewhere behind it all, a skinny and ragged creature that despoiled everything it touched; taking more and more of him until its plague itched under his skin. But Laurens, if he could give himself any credit, was wilful and stubborn, and he would not give that ratty monstrosity any more ground.

This was no longer just about him. He had a duty to the man in front of him.

If he had any right to call himself a friend to Lafayette, then he needed to be a man, not some fragile ornament. The Frenchman had never left him out in the cold, and it was only right that Laurens tried to do the same. The guilty must _try_ to repent their sins, at least. Lafayette never doubted him, not truly, so it was only right that he continued to see what he expected, not some caricature of it.

So he pushed. Laurens pushed it all away so that he could seal it all in his little Pandora’s Box. Pushed away the mindlessness, pushed away the pain, and pushed away that wretched thing that haunted his steps.

He would not unman himself with weakness.

“I’m fine,” he said to Lafayette. “Some days have admittedly been difficult, but I am fine. You needn't worry.”

The admission visibly gave Lafayette some relief as a soft breath hissed out between his teeth. He patted Laurens’ hand before reclaiming his glass and drinking deep.

“So my friend,” he said once a good amount of the ale was gone. “What do we do? You have told me about Lee and André, though I admit I am unsure how knowing such things will get us out of… whatever this is. Lee’s treachery was revealed to me regardless, and you have said you had little success with telling Hamilton, Washington, and I of it in the past.” He paused, tilting his head like a curious bird. “How _did_ you find out about Major André, by the way? You mentioned something about a courier?”

Laurens ignored the question. “Get us out?”

“Well, you and I somehow got into this, yes? So perhaps we may get out.”

Laurens rubbed his chin. Getting out. As desperately as he wanted to, and as desperately as he tried, the concept had become more foreign with time, no matter if every day was just another struggle for it. But Gilbert saying the words so simply, so determined, flared the dulling glow of hope somewhere on his left side. Yes, they could get out of this. He had believed it fully mere days ago. He would believe it again.

Perhaps Lafayette was right about Lee, as much as it irked him that so much of his damned energy had been wasted with regard to that man. But Lafayette _was_ right. Telling the others of what he knew had made no real difference. Rejection or cooperation had given the same result. Lee still betrayed them. The Continentals still lost. Even murdering that whoreson did not solve the problem.

If they could just somehow _win_ without the death of those Laurens cared about.

Pain shot through his heart as he contemplated losing anyone else to this damned battle. The thought of losing Lafayette again, and having to see his blank, glassy eyes, was woeful. The thought of losing _Alexander…_

Laurens clenched his fingers around his knee so hard it was painful.

“We need to win the day,” he growled. “Somehow. A loss only equates to a reset. But so far I have been unsuccessful with victory with…” _with everyone intact,_ “without having full assurance of it.

“If we stay too long on the battlefield together,” _you or I die,_ “that is a loss. If only I stay with Lee, I am usually partial to dying. If Hamilton is with me and we go to General Washington to speak of Lee, your messenger never reaches us and he believes neither of us until we have already started a full retreat...” Laurens opened his mouth to continue on, but a thought struck him and he paused.

Lafayette’s messenger.

When Laurens was not with the Frenchman, the messenger consistently failed to reach Washington. But the one time that Laurens _was_ with the other man, the messenger had made it to the General because _Laurens_ had sent him. Though, thinking on it more, there was the case when Lafayette’s man had been successful when John had been on the wrong side of the field. How that fit into the mess of things was nevertheless a mystery, so he pushed the oddity aside. It was not as if Laurens was going to be putting on another red coat any time soon. Not if he could help it.

It may be that the messenger was the key. Perhaps if Laurens and Lafayette were to retreat up the hill early, and wait to see the evidence of Lee’s dishonour, then perhaps, _perhaps_ Laurens could ensure that the missive made its way to His Excellency unspoiled.

Laurens turned back to Lafayette, a small amount of giddiness igniting in his breast. “I have an idea."


	11. Chapter 11

\--Loop 31--

 

Possibly to the surprise of all save Laurens and Lafayette, the two men did not join the battle. Lafayette kept his spyglass in hand as he sat atop Poivre on the slope a fair distance from the forward lines. John, sans instrument, watched the battle beside him, squinting when the sway of trees or the haze of battle obscured his vision.

They had quickly found that the men had no intimate need of their French commander. Lafayette’s infantry had fought just as soundly as if he were on the field beside them, however much Laurens could see that it secretly wounded Lafayette’s ego. They had kept a steady back and forth of low ranking officers to update them of the ongoings in the lines, but all in all, nothing seemed amiss.

Though his friend constantly —perhaps in a fit of nerves— pressed the brass spyglass to his eye in search of Lee’s troops, Laurens had no need to. He had developed a sixth sense for the time, which was approaching fast as the hours grew on. It was drawing closer to his estimation when his friend hummed, looking eastward for the fifth consecutive time that hour. With a sigh, Lafayette tucked the instrument away and turned to Laurens, his lips drawn into a strangled smile.

“It’s time, my friend.”

Laurens tightened his reins in his fingers as Lafayette beckoned a man over with a wave. A comely looking man, he wore the uniform of a local regiment, dirtied in its use and haggard in its upkeep. His dark hair was pulled into a knot at his neck, held down by an equally haggard looking cocked hat. Laurens wondered where Lafayette had managed to drag _this_ one up. He was particularly good at gathering the oddest sort no matter where he went. At the man’s weak salute, Lafayette nodded.

“Mister Holt, it appears General Lee is adverse to our plans for the battle and has ordered a retreat when he should not have. I wish for you to immediately report His Excellency, General Washington and tell him of this news.” Holt straightened his shoulders and readied his beast to leave right away. Lafayette held up a hand to signal he was not quite finished. “Lieutenant-Colonel Laurens will be accompanying you, to back up what I have said. Please follow his direction.”

“Sir,” Holt acknowledged with another salute, this time directed toward Laurens. Ah, so this was Holt then, the man recommended to him when Lafayette had been hurt, and Laurens… troubled. To be frank, he was not the man Laurens had expected, but he would have to do nonetheless. Laurens would only have to ensure his survival, a man may have a better chance of that than if he were some boy.

They were about to set off, when Lafayette turned to Laurens a final time, and leaned over to grasp his shoulder. “Good luck, my dear friend,” he said. “Let us hope this is over quickly.”

Laurens smiled back at the Frenchman and patted his hand; as true a smile he could manage these days. “Good luck yourself, Marquis. I will see you down below after the battle,” he replied with deft sincerity. He found it made for easier breathing to have a reliable soul at his side, even if it was one he had damned. Lafayette had a way of sparking hope, despite all the uncertainty.

With a gentle kick of his heel their plan was set into motion.

The Marquis had been open to his plan at the tavern; so much so, that the fire that dulled in the wake his unsurety reignited from the embers and set his eyes alight. He had been noticeably more cheerful this morning, though still not quite the level of his usual optimism. Laurens was nonetheless pleased he could ease some of the burden that had settled on the Frenchman’s shoulders, even if it meant the pressure weighed more heavily on his own.

They had not bothered to return to camp that day, and instead slept under the stars on a foreign hillside, far from any town, and far enough from any possibility of being caught and arrested within the space of a reset. Though Lafayette still had latent nerves about the aforementioned possibility, and their status as quasi-traitors, he had quickly found point in the fact that there was nothing to be done about it now. It was nice, Laurens found, to be able to talk to someone again. Though missing their third, the two of them lay together on the grass and discussed meaningless things, just as they had done before this had all started when the nights had grown too hot to comfortably rest.

It had been a reprieve to not have to think about the world outside the bubble they created together on the hill. Even when Laurens had abandoned the cause for a time, he had always only had the company of his own mind. The locals that had invited him to luncheon on occasion didn’t truly count. Lafayette, at least, understood his burden. And when they chose not to talk about their shared troubles, it was through honest choice, not salient ignorance. So, with the stars bright above them, they had murmured their insignificant conversation to one another, feeling comfortable in their momentary escape. And Laurens too, had felt a little more confident in his ability for friendship, whether that confidence was misguided or not.

They had only later come to regret the abandonment of Lafayette’s overcoat late into the night when the grass had grown damp on their backs. Laurens had allowed the ribbing he had received with a measure of countenance. He deserved it, after all.

He was about to head down to the fields when Holt called out from behind him. “Sir!”

Tugging on his reins, he slowed and wheeled Josephine around to face the man. “What is it, Mister Holt?”

Holt looked unsure. “Sir, it’s just… I know these parts well. And while a path through the fields will take us to the General, I know of a forest track that will get us there quicker.”

Laurens thought on it for a moment. This was the first he had heard of any track, it may get them there faster but… he shook his head in sudden exasperation. Lee was already on the move, and simply standing here thinking of it wasted more time. They had a plan to stick to, he couldn’t venture into unsureties. They had to go, and they had to go _now._

“No,” he said staunchly. “A path through the fields will suit us fine. We’ll stick near the treeline so as to not get mixed in the chaos of the battle. Follow me, Mister Holt, and do not lag.” Holt acquiesced with a nod.

Laurens lead them down the slope and across the bank and ditch that thinned out the already thin treeline which joined the British north to the Continental south, and loosely separated Lafayette’s troops from Lee’s. Said troops had already disappeared from the field, back to the shaded road that had lead them there by the time Laurens and Holt rode near where they still ought to be. Sight of Continental bodies grew thick on the field and Laurens grit his teeth, spurring Josephine on. They had be quick or the body count would only grow. Comfortingly, they found no fight from the enemy as they continued on – the British had already pressed forward, leaving only their wounded and dead behind them.

Sounds of the battle grew louder once again, as the two men closed in on Washington’s position. Laurens felt a small victory of satisfaction as his plan had succeeded. Holt was alive and well behind him. Now, they only had to rally Lee’s troops back to the cause.

Yet, when Washington was in sight, the fighting proved to be much closer than Laurens had thought to expect. Even the officers, previously non-combatant for this battle and not far off from the main lines, had pulled out their rifles. What was Washington doing?

Laurens whipped his head around, trying to take in the mounting chaos before him. He and Hamilton had been closer all those loops ago, when they had rode from Lee’s position, and it had not gotten as bad as it was now. _We can still win this,_ Laurens thought despite the pummelling he saw happening before him _._ Lee had enough troops to replace the fallen.

As he continued on, a sudden surge of energy fuelling his ride, Laurens realised something startling: He and Hamilton providing their report of Lee was probably what prompted Washington into a retreat. Only this time, they were absent with the news. Laurens scanned the battlefield as he rode past men fighting and dying. Alexander was out there somewhere in amongst the mess, but worryingly, he could not see him. There was no one to tell Washington what was happening, whether the man believed it or not. Laurens felt a spike of uncharacteristic irritation at the General. At least a retreat would have saved the lives of some of the soldiers that lay bleeding in the mud.

The man soon came into sight as Laurens mounted the bank and started up to where a tall figure on an enormous horse stood just over the top of the ridge, out of the reach of the whizzing bullets that made even Laurens anxious. He glanced behind him to make sure Holt was still at his back. The dark-haired man was looking pale but alive as he clutched his cocked hat to his head, lest a sudden breeze steal it away.

Washington’s face was akin to granite as he surveyed his troops, but it melted into a stoic surprise as he caught sight of Laurens. The man whipped his reins and gave a nudge to his giant stallion’s side, urging the beast forward down the slope.

“Colonel what has happened?” He shouted above the cries and distant booms. Even with the powerful voice produced from the man’s barrel chest, it was hard to hear him. Laurens had to strain to catch the words that slipped underneath the mishmash of noise. “Why are… --… here? Is Major-General Lafayette alrig—“

The General was cut off as a stray bullet hit him with enough force to make him tumble from his saddle.

Laurens reeled in horror. _No!_

“ ** _General!_** _”_ he cried hoarsely, speeding the rest of the way forward. Men clamoured down the bank as their own horrified cries resounded with Laurens’. He slipped from Josephine once he was close enough to the prone General and fell to his knees before the man. Washington wetly gasped as he clutched near his heart from where he lay on his back. He must have also hit his head on the way down, for blood seeped sluggishly from his temple. He looked to Laurens as the younger man pressed a hand over the General’s own, trying to stem the flow of blood pouring from the wound in vain. Even as his face grew paler, Washington had enough strength to wrap the fingers of his spare hand around Laurens’ bicep in an iron-grip.

“Gilbert,” he wheezed. “Is the boy alright?”

“He’s fine, Your Excellency. He sent me down to— he’s _fine_ ,” Laurens replied, sick desperation and the shadow of fear rearing in his gut. _Oh God._ This shouldn’t have happened. Yet it _was_ happening, and so quickly too. They had a _plan._ It had been _working._ How could this have happened?

 _Stop pretending that you have ever had any modicum of control, John,_ a voice told him viciously.

“Good. Good. You will tell him that I love him, won’t you? You will tell him I regard him as my son?”

“Of course I will, Your Excellency,” Laurens promised, voice straining. Men had gathered around them now, some with guns drawn to protect them and provide cover fire. If they could just drag Washington from the field, he could still be saved. “You may even tell him, yourself.”

Washington’s rumbling baritone grew weaker as he forced words from his breast. But the words he had for Laurens were warm and reassuring, as if he were gently chiding a child. “No, no. None of that now, Colonel. Tell Gilbert for me; write to Martha.” He closed his eyes and breathed harshly through his nose. “And Alexander. Tell him too…won’t you? “

Washington gave a sudden, violent spasm, and then stilled.

“Dear God have mercy,” somebody whispered at his side. Laurens heard him over the roar of battle, as clear as day. Their little group grew solemn, even as the world still raged around them. It had happened so fast. A minute had not even gone by, and now a body lay cooling before them.

There was something inherently wrong with this. The great George Washington, idolised by the people, could not die to a stray bullet. Laurens found it unacceptable. More than unacceptance, and despite the things a normal man should feel at this moment, it made anger boil under his skin. It was not _right._ This could not be the outcome of his— _their_ planning. _Is this it? Is this how it is always going to be?_ Laurens bristled in his own mind. How could they possibly succeed if the world was against them? He could not believe this to be simple chance, this unfairness surely had some grounding – a hell which teased as it tortured.

Anger, he quite suddenly found, was easier to fall into that the other creatures that lurked behind it. He pushed the subtle hurt away as a more lucid frustration took its place. He wanted to roar and beat his fists into something _._ How could they win if it seemed like something was always against them?

Somewhere behind him, the cry went up. “The General is dead!”

Laurens rose to his feet, his clenched fists shaking. His sword was a heavy reminder at his side, so he unsheathed it, feeling the weight of it in his hand. He griped the hilt hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

Without direction, the soldiers around Washington’s body began to move. Someone covered him with a coat they had conjured up. It was no shroud, but it would have to do until the battle was over. And the battle _would_ be over. One way or another. Laurens had yet to cut down any redcoats this day. Now would be the perfect opportunity.

Time seemed to speed up soon after. Brigadier-General Morgan took charge with a new fervour that extended to every troop still on the field as the news quickly spread. Instead of a drop in morale, Washington’s death had done quite the opposite; the British had taken their beloved commander, so the Continentals would take their vengeance in return. Lee’s troops were seized upon by the handful of officers Laurens took with him to the place on the road he knew the General would be. And though Lee had not looked as downtrodden with the news as he ought to have, his troops did his job for him, wishing to re-join the battle at once. Laurens, in his current state, could have shot the General right there, but the pounding in his head urged him away, and his temperament lusted for blood that was not Charles Lee’s.

Laurens had found Hamilton quickly on his return to the field, rallied troops in tow. His face was an echo of Laurens’ rage; the little lion could become wickedly fierce when roused. But amongst the chaos that he felt, Laurens also found an iota of relief that the shorter man was unharmed. What blood was on his face, didn’t seem to be his own, though it added to his image in a way that left Laurens admonishing himself as a shot of electricity routed a path through him. _Not now,_ he thought, willing it away.

“I’m going to kill them,” Hamilton snarled, as low as his smooth voice would allow. Frustration and anger beat their rhythm in Laurens’ temples. He had found he agreed, and together, they had set off on their warpath.

In the end, they had made it. Barely. But they had made it.

After the battle, a hasty marquee had been erected in a safe place off to the side, as the Continentals arranged themselves to return to camp. Laurens and Hamilton were the only living occupants in the partially open tent, and with Washington’s shrouded body close by, neither found they had much to say. Alexander had grown quiet, sitting on the flattened grass next to his commander. He blankly stared at the beetles that crawled over the strands and the tips of his shoes, a thousand miles away in his own mind. His friend’s eyes were dry, but his shoulders were hunched and his knees were drawn to his chest, as though to shield himself from an attack that had yet to come.

Tilley had arrived not long before, but he had only taken one sad look at the General before moving off to aid those wounded men that still breathed. Laurens eyed the stretcher from where he stood, arms folded, close to one of the tent poles at the entrance. The rage and frustration still thrived, but had begun to simmer into something horribly familiar. Another mistake. Another hefty cost. Laurens felt so _tired._

Was he allowed no victory at all? No peace? Everything he did, everything he tried to do, simply fell into shambles. Someone was laughing, somewhere, he was sure of it. He wondered if there would ever come a time when he did not feel like a blind man shooting at targets. He was so tired of this guilt. He was so tired of this warped anticipation. He was so tired of both aching for and fearing the possibility of tomorrow.

But as his eyes followed the lines of the General’s boot that peeked out of the linen, there was more than just the guilt of responsibility. There was also the guilt of absence; and the worry that started to gnaw his breast because of it. Laurens looked at the body of his dead commander, the man he thought of as a second father to him, a man he had absolute respect and love for, and felt… less that he knew he ought to. There was still pain in his heart, and it still ached that Washington had died, but he couldn’t seem to summon up the appropriate amount of emotion he knew he was supposed to. Laurens was not a man to cry easily, but surely at least _some_ tears should slip from his eyes at this loss. But none came. He felt no blankness like the kind Alexander currently wrestled with, nor the wretched kind of sadness that was making its way through the army that had begun to wind down from the high. Though he was not certain of it, could never really be certain of it, a painfully convincing voice at the back of his mind told him to wait until the next loop. There should not even have to _be_ a next loop, but now this hope of surety had grown old, and less certain as the minutes passed, stopped, and rewound. The voice persisted: a death had occurred, the day would reset, and thus everything would be fine in the next loop. But its assurance was sweet, and even poison could be delicate to the senses. Laurens didn’t know quite what to do with that. He wanted to believe, but he did not want to fall victim to false possibility.

And if the voice was wrong, and tomorrow was truly tomorrow, would he suddenly feel as he knew he should? A morose thought crossed his mind that perhaps he never would. Perhaps while the rest of the people mourned and grieved for the loss of a heroic man, Laurens would only feel regret at his own inadequacy.

Had this Predicament broken him now; so suddenly? Was he becoming… _fine_ with this? It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right at all. How many other deaths— should they come; _if_ they come— would he be fine with? If Lafayette were to be killed again, would he just shrug and carry on as if nothing were amiss? He thought he would always be distressed at that prospect, but now with this… lacking with regard to Washington... Laurens shuddered, a small amount of terror slipping through the cracks. He did not want to be that man. Part of him wanted to open the box he had sealed just to be sure his soul was still there, but to open it would reveal his weakness to the light of day. It was a fight not to be so selfish.

He was pulled from his reflection when Alexander suddenly broke from his own trace, and looked to the field. Laurens followed his line of sight.

_Oh no._

Lafayette had whipped his horse into a frenzy along the ridge. Laurens could easily see the open fear that was plastered to his face as he rode. Someone must have sent a messenger back across the field, Holt, in all likeliness. Laurens could only imagine what had happened when Lafayette had been given the news by the man who should have been him. His plan, his failure.

Once close enough, Lafayette pulled on the reins hard enough to make Poivre whinny in fright and kick up his front legs. The Frenchman stumbled from his mount, ignoring any attempts to help him from the saddle.

“Gilbert…” Laurens left his place in the tent, charging over to where Lafayette rushed forward, looking frantically around.

“ _John!”_ He cried when he caught sight of him, then looked past him to where the tent lay beyond.

Laurens caught the frantic man around the middle with a grunt as the Frenchman tried to run straight for where the body of his General lay cold. Lafayette fought him instantly, struggling in his grip like a crazed animal. Yet Laurens was stronger, and he locked his arms around the thinner man, pulling his back flush against his chest. The Marquis let out a frustrated growl, and only battled harder in response, enough that Laurens had to grit his teeth against the strain of keeping him in place.

“John, please let me go,” he begged when it was apparent Laurens would not allow himself to be resisted, “please let go of me… I have to—“

He tried to wrench Laurens’ arm from where it was wrapped around his belly, but with his grief quickly setting in, strength seeped from the man’s limbs. Overcome, he slumped in the Laurens’ grip, causing the both of them to stagger.

“I’m sorry,” John whispered thickly into Lafayette’s ear once the man had stilled.

Lafayette hung his head, shuddering; his fight, blazing for an instant, was almost fully gone. “This was supposed to _work_ ,” Lafayette protested meekly, a hint of defiance still in him. _This was supposed to work._ How many times had he told himself that in the past? Would this place eventually break Gilbert, as it was beginning to break John?

Laurens pressed his forehead into the back of the Frenchman’s neck. “I know, my friend. I’m so sorry.”

\--

Lafayette listened to the staggered chirping of the night that lived outside his tent. Normally such a thing would calm him, but tonight every noise grated against his mind. His companions minded themselves: Laurens sprawled on the chair, arms folded, and legs akimbo as he contemplated the canvas above him. Hamilton had sat himself on Lafayette’s luggage, elbows resting on his knees. The man looked to the both of them, though his eyes tried to catch Gilbert’s from his place on the bunk more often than John’s. He was waiting for someone to talk, but for once did not want to venture there himself.

Lafayette knew why Hamilton insisted on silently prodding him. With the scene he had made, the whole American camp surely knew. He had been allowed to see him, his dear General, but Lafayette had not wanted to look too long. Laurens had been a warm presence beside him, but he had let Hamilton lead Lafayette away so he would not have to watch the men load Washington’s body into a cart like they had done with the rest of the dead. He was only a little ashamed to admit a few tears had spilled over once Alexander had him alone. But he could have sworn Hamilton had wiped his face with the back of his hand once he was sure Lafayette had not been looking.

His body felt like a lead weight, pinning him to the bed. It was amazing how he felt heavier when a piece had been torn from his chest. Even worse though, was that Lafayette did not know _what_ to feel. George had been like— no, had _been_ a father to him. He had never truly had one before. His uncle and grandfathers did not count, for they loved at a distance, and in a way he had never felt welcomed to. But Washington, staunch and stoic, but also warm and kind had _loved_ him. Truly loved him. He did not have to say it, for Gilbert had recognised it for what it was, even if before this kind had been foreign to him. It shined in his eyes and was present in the small smiles he passed along gently. He had made Lafayette _proud_ to be an object of that love.

And now he was gone. Another one, gone. His heart ached, and ached, and no rational thought in his mind made it better. As much a rational thought could make sense of an irrational situation. How was he supposed to feel about this? This confusion only added to the spiralling turmoil. Their plan had gone awry in the most absurd way. Did they succeed? Was this the price of succeeding? If it was over, then Gilbert desperately did not want it to be. He was at a loss for what to do, and further, he still did not understand. None of this made sense. Still, reality fought him. Was this real? Imagined? This sorrow was not imagined. This hurt that ripped and tore and sunk into his bones was not imagined.

It was not often Lafayette wanted to destroy something, but he wanted it now. He wanted to feel something crumble in his hands; to be able to control its fate in a way he could not seem to control his own. He thought he had control in all his choices since coming to America. After having things decided for him for as long as he could remember, getting on the ship was one choice that was truly his. Even if Adrienne’s father had spit fire, Gilbert had not cared. He _wanted_ to go. He had decided that for _himself._ And it was freeing, to be able to decide one’s own fate. But now it felt as if he were caged again; and like a bird that had been promised the wind, he had only been returned to a prison by something greater than himself.

Hamilton became more insistent in his shuffling, and Lafayette sighed around his aching heart.

“Enough, Alexander,” he murmured. Hamilton, to his credit, instantly stopped trying to wordlessly prod. The sound of his voice also drew Laurens’ attention away from the roof. He looked to Lafayette, eyes imploring.

His dear friend had served as a pillar of strength, not only today, but for the past few loops Lafayette had been subjected to. He had taken Lafayette’s weakness in stride, and remained the heroic figure the Marquis knew him to be. Truthfully, he thanked God for Laurens’ presence, because he did not know if he could have done this on his own. Laurens blamed himself for Lafayette being here, he knew, but he found he did not blame John. He _could_ not blame him. Laurens had been nothing but selfless, it was not his fault for a predicament he could not control.

He seemed to take _everything_ in stride, while Lafayette continued to flounder. What he would give to be someone like John, who breezed through with an authority Lafayette could never hope to imitate. Whatever doubts he had of Laurens’ lack of trust in him had been swept away. He was attentive, and caring, and Lafayette had no right to feel as hurt as he had at John’s imagined lack of transparency. It had been nice to talk on the hillside the night before; even if the conversation hadn’t strayed to anything important or pressing, it showed that John was someone Gilbert felt he could lean on when things became as trying as they were now. And though Laurens seemed immune to them, Lafayette truly hoped that if he had any troubles, he would voice them. A friend should be able to return the favour to his fellow.

But for now, he desperately needed Laurens’ guidance once again.

“What if tomorrow is the twenty-ninth, John?” Lafayette asked. “What are we supposed to do?” His friend straightened in his chair, quickly looking to Hamilton, but not for the same reason that the other man looked back at him. Lafayette could not make himself care about secrecy enough to keep it between the two of them. He needed to know. He needed to be given some direction from the only one of them that seemed to know how to handle this.

“You want to talk about this?” Laurens replied, subtly tilting his head to the tent’s last occupant who was now looking between them in open and suspicious confusion.

“What are we supposed to do?” He repeated, feeling more distraught with each word. It was increasingly difficult to keep his English intelligible. “Our dear General is dead, and I… please John. Tell me there is some way to amend this. You must _know_.”

Laurens’ face knotted, and he sighed deeply, scrubbing his fingers across his cheek. “There is… the possibility that tomorrow will be another repeat, regardless. The other option is one I do not think should be taken lightly.”

The other option. Lafayette became subdued. Surely he could not mean… but there was no other way to take it. He knew his friend would never go to such lengths. But even the suggestion… no. He could not do it. Even if it meant the possibility of erasing the day, Lafayette could not stomach it. Consider him a coward, but he could not take his own life even if it meant the prospect of saving another. The thought of Laurens pressing a gun to his head made him want to wretch. The thought of pressing one to his own made him grow cold and shudder.

“Laurens, you haven’t… have you?” he whispered, aghast. Surely not. Surely his friend had never sunk that low. Lafayette did not think he could believe it, Laurens would never commit to such a thing. Would he?

Laurens wet his lower lip. “No,” he admitted. “But it may be an alternative. Though I’m not sure… it should be taken at all.”

Lafayette’s distress grew. Then they could do nothing but wait on possibility? They couldn’t… he wracked his mind for anything they could do that made logical sense but he only grasped at emptiness.

“Would someone like to tell me what is going on?” Hamilton suddenly cut through the silence. His tone was high, angry even, and he looked between them with an unexpected, but pure vitriol. “I cannot help but feel I am out of the loop with regard to some vital pieces of information,” He said as he stood from the leather chest, abruptly enough to make Laurens and Lafayette recoil.

Lafayette closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose, cradling his head in his hands. No, he could not deal with this now. Not after everything that had happened today. He had invited this reaction from Hamilton, he knew, and it was not fair to either of his friends to do this, but Laurens was the strong one and the bond he shared with Hamilton was far more intense than Lafayette could hope for. Laurens would know what to do. He would know how to explain this, because Lafayette, frankly, still lacked the ability to.

“What is being kept from me? The both of you speak in insinuations and riddles— insinuations that are utterly deplorable in their nature. Why are you acting this way? A way, I might add, that you have both been acting since this morning.” Hamilton’s voice only notched higher as he grew more and more upset.

“You share a comradery that you do not share with me. What has changed since yesterday that you have locked me out? You are not the only ones—“ his voice stuck in his throat. “You are not the only ones whom are _affected_ right now.”

“Alexander, “ came Laurens’ interjection. “It’s not—“

“Is my presence a nuisance to you both?” Alexander sounded wounded. “Am I an afterthought between you?”

“Of course not!”

“Then explain to me, _John._ Why the two of you converse as if I have been rendered invisible.”

“It’s complicated. We don’t mean to ignore you—“

“Oh, you don’t, do you? Is that why you continue to do so anyway?”

“The situation is not easy to understand, Ham. And with Washington…”

“Washington is dead! And the both of you speak as though you could resurrect his soul with a few simple tricks. Have you no _shame?_ ”

“Please, as I’ve said, it’s complicated, and difficult to explain—“

“ _Then explain it to me!_ Because Washington is dead, and there is not a _damn thing that can be done about it!_ ”

Heartache ripped through his chest again, causing Lafayette to shudder. No more. He could take no more. He just wanted to sink into his bed, and let himself wallow in his loss. His father may be gone for good and Alexander was right. There was nothing he could do about it; not with a clean conscience.

“Please go,” he said, silencing Hamilton. _Forgive me, my friend, but I cannot deal with this._

“Gilbert,” Laurens offered instantly, but Lafayette shook his head.

“Please, if the both of you could leave. I think I wish to be alone.” Silence was his response, but then there came a growing shuffle of fabric. His friends understood.

He listened as two sets of bodies rose to their feet, though angry, confused whispers only came from one of them. There was a scrape of boots, and a sudden, loud clatter as someone, presumably Hamilton, violently pushed past Laurens with enough force to send him stumbling into Lafayette’s desk. The canvas flapped, but still a presence remained at the entrance.

_Leave. Please, leave._

“Before he died,” Laurens’ deep voice said. “He wanted me to inform you that he loved you, and that he regarded you as a son.” A beat, then, “I’m sorry, Gilbert. For what my poor apologies are worth. I just thought you should know.”

There was a shift in the canvas, and Laurens was gone.

\--

They had only made it a few yards from Lafayette’s tent before Hamilton whirled on him. The distant lanterns threw a dulled, weak light on his body, but the darkness spread by the overhanging trees did not encroach enough that Laurens could not see the hurt hunch of the shorter man’s shoulders, nor the wide-eyed glare he sent his way.

“Speak,” he commanded with all the power of his rank behind the word. Laurens internally winced. Never in all his time knowing Hamilton, had he seen him this way before. He had seen him seethe at common stupidity and questionable orders. He had seen him send a harsh return to those who would insult his character with slander and lies. But _never_ had that been turned on him. Never had Laurens done anything to deserve it. Until now. He had hurt his friend when the man was already raw with loss. Whatever the relationship Hamilton had with Washington, it was evident from his outburst in the tent that he still cared.

“Alexander, please know that neither Lafayette nor I intended to cause you ill in anyway. What we were discussing had no bearing on you.”

Hamilton scoffed.

“If I did not know you any better Laurens, I would astutely question your judgement. Perhaps I simply imagined your suggestion that Lafayette commit _suicide_ as a means to conjure up a spirit of the dead _._ Now, if you consider me a friend at all, you will tell me what in the _hell_ just happened, and you will _also_ tell me why you acted as you did on the field today.” Alexander’s rage was palatable in the evening air. “You _will_ tell me… else I am afraid our friendship can no longer continue.” His voice caught and stumbled on ‘ _friendship_ ’ and Laurens felt a strike to his heart.

 _I never intended to make you feel like this, my dear boy, believe me._ There was nothing for it then. He would have to come clean. Laurens ardently hoped this would not cause irreparable harm in some way.

Alexander was breathing hard, a cold look on his face, whilst he waited on Laurens answer. There was a hint of fear in the atmosphere around them, but John did not recognise it as his own.

“Alright,” Laurens replied. “I’ll tell you. Just… let’s return to our tent first. This isn’t something that should be overheard.”

Hamilton deflated, but his nod was still stern.

Upon their return to their marquee, Laurens used the time spent firing the lantern to mull over how he should approach the situation. Hamilton was not likely to accept this easily, so perhaps he should leave out the more… gruesome aspects. It would be better, he decided, to give a similar story to the one he had given Lafayette. Neither men needed to know of the weakness he had given himself over to on occasion. That would remain in his box with the other creatures.

Alexander had his arms crossed defensively, gaze not straying from John’s form. When John offered a place on his bunk with a hand, he moved indignantly and seated himself a good distance away.

“I know how this will sound to you,” Laurens started carefully, “but I just ask that you listen. And know that I am not playing any cruel jests to purposely wound you, my dear. I could never do that, you have to understand.”

Laurens recounted his edited story. How he had died under Josephine with a bayonet in his chest. How he awoke to relive the day, thinking it all a mere dream, but had once again found Lee treacherously retreating, and had received a bullet to his neck for the trouble of reprimand. How he had told Hamilton of Lee’s intentions before, many times in fact, as he relived the same day over, and over. Winning and losing the battle, dying again and again. Taking Lee’s life in his anger, only to find himself on the wrong side of military law. Laurens again wove the lie he had told Lafayette of how he had received a clue from a captured British courier that revealed Lee’s traitorous disposition. And finally he spoke of dying in battle with Lafayette, only to find that the Frenchman’s memory had not be erased like it should have been. They had planned a decisive victory for today, but they had failed. They had done something wrong. Somewhere. Perhaps they had taken a wrong turn. Perhaps they had been too slow. Regardless, Washington had suffered the consequences for it.

“So now you know. I have been trapped in this state for a little over a month, and nothing I have done can break this abnormality. I— we did not mean for Washington to die, but it just _happened_ ,” He scrubbed his hands over his face, and unexpectedly, his heart tweaked in pain and guilt. Perchance it was due to the look Alexander bore.

He turned away from Laurens, incredulous. “You’re mad,” he said, but it was too weak and too astonished to have any real cruelty behind it.

“Sometimes I feel like I am,” Laurens joked, his gallows’ humour coming through once again. “But… you believe me?” He was taking this surprisingly well.

Hamilton rubbed his mouth. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But it makes a small amount of sense, considering the way you acted.” He suddenly grimaced. “You said you’ve… died.”

“Yes.” There was really no other way to respond.

“Then, please, for my sake, do not do that again.”

“I—“ But Hamilton shook his head, indicating he did not truly want an answer from Laurens.

“At least you killed that scoundrel Lee,” he said after a moment.

“You didn’t seemed so pleased when it happened.”

“Well, for what it is worth, I am pleased now. We lost too many today, and it was all due to him.”

They fell into a pensive silence. There was still a tension that Laurens could not tease out, but it lacked the abrasive threat of their encounter under the trees. It had morphed, somewhat; changed from his show of half-honesty, and though it did not grow, it remained, waiting for either man to pick at it. Laurens tried his hand.

“You’re taking this better than I thought you would,” he acknowledged.

Alexander harrumphed. “Perhaps I’m simply tired of everything.”

“You’re still angry with me?”

Alexander looked back at him, his lips pulled into a thin line and his eyes wary. “You should have told me from the beginning – of today, at least. What was I to think when those I considered my friends, converse and plan, and treat me as nothing but a stranger? I am not so ashamed to admit my sensibilities have been wounded by you, Laurens.” He sighed. “And Washington; I certainly did not expect to lose him. I honestly did not think it a possibility.”

Laurens bit his lip in thought. It had been wrong of them to ignore Hamilton in favour of their pressing matters, he knew this and was deeply sorry for it, as much as the part he had played in Washington’s death. Though, perhaps he could offer something to ease the pain that stiffened the lines of his friend’s form.

“He said to me that he loved Lafayette as a man would his son,” he said, gently as to gage Hamilton’s reaction. The other man looked saddened but curious, so Laurens thought it would not be unkind to press further into the confession. “But, he also wished me to tell you the same.”

Unfortunately, against his hopes, it had the opposite effect. Hamilton made a noise and curled himself in further until he was hunched almost in half like Laurens had just stabbed him in the gut.

“He did, did he?” He answered, giving a small ‘hah’ that was almost cynical in its disbelief. But when he opened his eyes, they were moist, and Laurens could not stop himself from reaching across the space between them to smooth a hand over Alexander’s shoulder.

 _I know I deserve it, but please don’t shut me out._ He hated seeing his dear friend this way. It caused an equal ache in his own breast. It was not enough to simply touch his shoulder, he wanted to draw himself to the smaller man’s side.

Alexander allowed John to close the distance further, shifting some of the way himself, his anger now seemingly extinguished in the cool evening air. More so, he leant his full length along John’s side until they touched from shoulder to shoe-tip.

“I’m sorry,” John said. He seemed to say that a lot, lately. “I didn’t mean for that to hurt you.” He was startled that the other man took his words so poorly.

“No, I know you didn’t,” Alexander replied thickly with a shake of his head. He breathed, looking up to the shadowed roof and blinked the tears from his eyes. “This has been a strange day.” John hummed in agreement.

“But now this is complicated by you,” Alexander continued, turning back. His face was so close that John could count his lighter freckles, almost barely there compared to the few distinct spots that marked his face. “Lafayette asked if there was a way to rectify this; if there was a way to make it as if Washington didn’t die. I still don’t understand this all, but is there? Besides killing oneself, that is.”

Both of them looked at him as if he had all the answers. Yet, John barely knew himself.

“I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is that the day will reset if we lose the battle. But we didn’t. We took losses, heavier than any before, but we didn’t lose. Otherwise, it’s when I die, or am… indisposed.” What would happen if he did not take his own life, this time? Tomorrow was a pressing risk.  So, what if he were to take his own life again? But Lafayette was still here, he could still carry on to make tomorrow a reality, while Laurens would just become another victim of war, albeit a victim of his own making.

“The only other option is to wait and see if the day erases and begins again,” he finished.

“And if—“ Alexander hesitated, his eyes reflecting a sudden doubt in the light of the flickering lantern. “If the day does reset tomorrow, what will happen to me?”

John swallowed thickly. _You will be spared the pain of today, my dear boy. That wouldn’t be such a horrible thing._ “You will forget everything. Like all the times before.”

“But… I don’t _want_ to forget,” he said. His voice took a rough edge and he seized up. “Maybe, now that you’ve told me things I shouldn’t know, I won’t.”

It wasn’t to be. John knew this in his heart. “I’ve told you things you shouldn’t know before, and you haven’t remembered.”

“I can do something to retain my memory of today, there _must_ be a way for me to remember,” Alexander challenged, unable to accept the option of the inevitable. Pure, unadulterated passion spilled into his voice in a way that took John aback. And suddenly, his heart started to beat against his ribs as a change grabbed hold of it and squeezed.

John looked at Alexander. _Really_ looked at him.

The golden light from the desk lit the strands of Alexander’s hair to make them burn like a halo of fire around his head. He looked at John with a fierce openness, one that he did not seem to share with anyone else, not even Lafayette. It was filled with as much fire as that which blazed with the rest of him. John found he was made to feel wanted in its warmness, and for a moment, those things that he felt with contempt, that weakness that pervaded and poisoned, was nowhere to be found. He greedily took what was offered, and wrapped himself up in the ambiance that Alexander unknowingly gave in his passion. It was a balm he had been missing, and for the first time in a long time, John found true _relief_.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he murmured absentmindedly, with no small amount of awe, as he traced the curves of Alexander’s face with his eyes. He found he could not help but admire what he saw there, and so he let himself admire. The man before him was _beautiful._ John had always known it, but had rarely allowed himself to admit such a thing. To acknowledge it was to acknowledge his stains. But he did not feel that in this moment; not with Alexander who chased away all that clung and clawed, simply with his presence. Like a haze that seeped into his skin, the scent of paper and wheat was strong in the air.

“I’ll find a way,” Alexander pressed, hushed but no less strong in his conviction. And that was all John needed to release his own burdens, and lean over to kiss him.

The other man jolted in shock, but before John could pull away in embarrassment, Alexander was desperately kissing him back. His hands cupped around the nape of John’s neck, preventing him from easily drawing away. _My God, his lips are soft._ The smaller man quickly pulled himself half onto John’s lap causing him to wrap a hasty arm around Alexander’s waist, so as to save them both from crashing into the mattress.

John would be almost paralysed, if Alexander’s teeth nibbling at his lower lip did not encourage him onward. He had expected to be instantly pushed away and awkwardly warded off for his forwardness. In his mind, he had always thought this to be a one-sided attraction, one that he had suppressed for the sake of his friend’s propriety and save him from John’s perversions. But now his momentary weakness in his ability to hold himself back had result in a lapful of the slighter man, and hands creeping closer to the tie at his neck.

The entirety of his body thrummed in time with the wild beating of his heart. He felt _alive_ in the passion that took hold. Electricity ran its course through him, settling lower in a way that made him groan into Alexander’s mouth. The other man tugged on his queue in response which only excited another, lower, more primal growl from him. He felt a smile against his lips, and, not wanting to be outdone, he raked his fingers up Alexander’s thigh to press harshly into the flesh. Alexander sucked in a sharp breath and continued to work on the knot at John’s throat until the fabric gave up its resistance and was stolen away. He moved from Alexander’s lips to press small kisses along his jaw, and up his cheek to catch some of the dark pin-prick markings, but faltered when the taste of salt stung his mouth.

Reality hastily came crashing back, and John had to pull himself away. They should not be doing this. Alexander was hurting not just from Washington’s death, but also from all the things that came after. He did not share John’s latent emotions on the matter, how could he? The passion in his belly died somewhat, now that some sense returned. He grimaced. It felt as if he was taking advantage of him, and John could not, in any kind of good conscience, do that to Alexander. Reluctantly, he straightened, and forcibly calmed himself as he so often had to practice.

Alexander looked confused as John gently grabbed his hands and pulled them away from where they attempted to unbutton the top of his waistcoat.

“I can’t do this,” he said, but at Alexander’s hurt look, he quickly added: “it is not through a fault of yours. It’s just, so much has happened to you and…”

Alexander leaned back, insulted. “You think I am some kind fragile woman?”

“No!” John assured. A noise of frustration bubbled in his throat. “I would not want to take advantage of your state, my dear, and it feels like I am. I—I honestly did not expect the response you have given me.”

The other man grew quiet, and John hoped he had not further insulted Alexander’s sensibilities. His weight was still on John’s lap, and though he tried to push away his lust for the moment, John found it pleasing. Alexander rolled his jaw. He still looked vaguely offended, but with a small nod, he slid back onto the mattress next to John’s side.

“Have we done this before?” He asked absently, paying particular attention to the cuffs of his coat.

“No,” John admitted. “That was the first time anything like that has happened.”

“I see,” he said with an awkward air.

 _And now look what you have done,_ John thought, berating himself. “I meant to kiss you, Alexander. I don’t take that back.” There was no point in denying his long-burning attraction to the man now. Not when he had so wholeheartedly thrown himself onto Alexander. He felt a sting of wrongness in himself. They should not be doing this for a larger, more pressing reason.

His affirmation seemed to help though, because Alexander gave a meagre half-smile. “Then I think you should allow me this, at least,” he said, and kissed John again; lighter, less passionate, and filled an ounce of anxiety both of them shared. It was done. Alexander acquiesced to not fall further than they so suddenly had, even if it meant the consequences of the growing night he had so earnestly tried to convince John he could defeat. Laurens did not know what to feel.

They shucked off their boots and shoes, but Alexander did not move back to his own bunk, and John did not drive him to. The smaller man laid back on his side, not bothering to try and pull at the covers that had been well and truly messed in their foray.

“So what will you do?” He asked once Laurens leaned back on the bed with him. They had to squash together, lest Hamilton tumble to the canvas wall and take the tent with him.

Some of Hamilton’s hair had strayed from its queue and fanned out across the pillow. Laurens was tempted to tuck it back behind an ear, but since he had just stopped his advances, perhaps the action wouldn’t be very welcomed. Instead, he rolled onto his side so they were face-to-face on his bunk. His epaulette dug uncomfortably into his shoulder. The both of them should have removed their coats before laying down, but he found he didn’t wish to disturb the moment.

Humming, he turned the question over in his mind. There wasn’t much he _could_ do, in all honesty. His previous options had been made into unthinkable ones in the minds of the others, and now with Lafayette here, the option was in limbo anyway.

John leaned closer, taking some comfort in Alexander’s warmth. “Pray.”

 


	12. Chapter 12

\--Loop 32--

 

“Deciding to sleep in on a day like this Laurens? That’s unlike you.”

John blinked up to the canvas above. Part of him was relieved, but as he listened to Alexander shuffle to and fro, neatly arranging this and that on his person; straightening his blue coat, and adjusting the cravat around his neck like nothing was amiss, Laurens could not keep out the slip of disappointment. He knew Alexander had made a promise he could not keep, but part of him wished the man had been able to defy this queer little reality.

He had wanted Hamilton to remember, even if there was pain in that for him. It was selfish, Laurens knew it. He should want Hamilton to feel as at ease as he was now; threading the buttons of his gaiter through their holes, a serene –if slightly perturbed –look on his face; so different from the creased brow and upturned lips of last night that silently conveyed just how much he felt at the loss of their commander. But Laurens was a selfish man with selfish wants. And right now he wanted Alexander to look at him with some recognition in his eyes of what had happened last night in this tent. He sighed. Not loud enough for the other man to hear, but enough to try and release his feelings out into the ether so he would not have to deal with them. Laurens chided himself. He had no right to wish hell upon his friend. It was not fair on the other to be dragged down because of the lust he felt for the smaller man.

Finding his position uncomfortable for reaching, Laurens watched as Alexander stood and turned to place a leg on the frame of his bunk so that he could access the higher buttons of his gaiter better, unaware that he was giving his friend full view of the slim length of his legs. Laurens trailed his eyes up, following the delightful curves and creases that shaped Alexander’s body; up and up to the clinch of his waspish waist and up further to his thin neck and brush of auburn hair. Alexander was attractive, there was no denying it. Moreover, _John_ was intensely attracted to him, there was no denying that either. He remembered the feeling of his fingers biting into Alexander’s thighs: muscled yet with a thin layer of softness that took the edge off. In his mind, he could still hear the little huffing noises he had made as John’s teeth gently nipped at his jawline, and feel the press of his body in John’s lap. The memories made his heart race, and he feigned the grogginess of waking up so that he could keep on looking through the fingers which rubbed his brow.

Alexander straightened, the tails of his coat hiding the roundness that Laurens had been quietly admiring, and he pulled at his lapels to make himself look presentable once again, as if he were not already utterly immaculate. Hamilton turned to Laurens so sharply, it left him quickly looking to anywhere else, afraid that he had been caught in his veneration. Hamilton, thankfully, did not appear to notice.

“I’m away to see His Excellency regarding a matter with the orders for today, so I suppose I will see you in the courthouse?” He asked.

Laurens grunted a response which satisfied the other man enough to leave with a nod. Hamilton did so quickly; barely a second later the canvas flapped as he pushed it to the side, and was gone. Grateful that he could finally think without the hovering presence of the man his thoughts turned to, and alone with the rising heat, Laurens shoved off the suffocating covers to consider the lay of the land.

He had not been alone in his eagerness in their engagement, which was something that still caused Laurens’ head to spin. Alexander had _wanted_ him. Or at least, the state he had been in had left him open enough to respond to John’s perverted advances. But then, afterward, even as John had regained a handle on himself, Alexander had still wanted to kiss him. If he let himself believe it, then Hamilton was as equally attracted as Laurens found himself to be with his friend. He rubbed his brow again, this time with incredulity. Wasn’t that a turn of events? He had never thought of Hamilton as one that would be… _inclined_ toward this species of perversion, however much he had boasted about fucking this girl or that in a host of explicitly detailed positions. As far as John had known, he had always stuck fast to the fairer sex, of which John himself had far more room for improvement. Yet his memory was not so shoddy as to not remember Alexander’s feverish excitement at having his friend grab him and press into his mouth.

Well. That was that, then.

As he sat there in his underthings, turning it over in his mind a bit more, his father’s voice came upon him like a phantom. _Remember to be wary during your time in Geneva, John,_ he had said, years ago now. _Proximity can breed perversion of the most detestable kind. Do not let yourself be disgraced in such a way._ It was strong in its haughtiness, and valid in its manner. He had already failed his father on that account, many times, albeit only one man had lead him most diligently down the path to temptation. Francis Kinloch had stung him with the same needle of attraction which once again found its way under his skin. Although their status as friends had long since drifted and broken, John could almost be sure it was the same sort of feeling he felt now with Hamilton. The racing heart; the deep-seated heat that sunk lower and blazed as they tangled themselves together; the heady smell of the other man that wrapped around Laurens’ senses and clung. He should be ashamed to feel these things once again, after he had tried to lock them away, to focus and calm himself when wisps of attraction managed to slip through. He should be ashamed, but Alexander made it graciously difficult to be so. He had failed his father so many times before that John wasn’t sure he had the right to take the title of ‘son’ at this point. Another sigh. What was one more failure? What was one more temptation to fall into? He was attracted to Alexander. It made him a bad son. It made him a bad Christian. But he had been both those things for an awfully long time now.

 _Have we done this before?_ Alexander’s words filtered through as he pulled up and tied off his stockings. He had said it so awkwardly, as if he was not sure how he felt about the possible reality of it. Laurens paused, abruptly uncomfortable. It could have been so easy to say ‘yes’ and Alexander would never have known the difference. Just as today he had no clue that he had sucked on John’s lips what felt like mere hours ago. It seemed… _wrong_ . As if Laurens would be somehow taking advantage of his friend if he were to pursue this attraction he felt, in the current mess he was in. A sudden sickness came from the depths of his gut. How could he, in good mind, continue on in this matter? The answer was immediate and simple: no, he could not. It was freeing to admit he enjoyed the idea of Hamilton sharing his bed as well as his friendship, but... that would have to _wait_. If it were to come to fruition at all. Once Laurens was granted liberty from this cycle, perhaps he and Alexander could talk. But until then… he shook his head.

Nevertheless, whilst pulling on his coat, and setting the epaulettes straight, Laurens felt somewhat lighter. Freer. The remaining unease was painless to push away in the quiet thrill that beat in his chest. It was nice to finally have something agreeable come out of this jumbled misery. Now, though, he had a certain Frenchman to find. He wondered how the man was doing. Better, he hoped, now that Laurens words had rung true.

\--

While Lafayette’s face did look clearer, it was easy to see he was not so well as take the day as seriously as he ought to. The man stuck to General Washington like he was physically attached to the commander. He even refused the command he had always been so eager to obtain, much to the surprise of many. Laurens said nothing. It was not his place to tell a man, especially not his friend, how to act or feel so soon after being subjected to death only to have it erased.

Brigadier-General Morgan took Lafayette’s post at the front. The Continentals lost the day, and lost it badly. Laurens didn’t think he had ever been present for a loss this severe. There was guilt written all over Lafayette’s face for it, so Laurens took him aside. There was no point in pursuing a victory if the other man did not have the right mind for it. So, he suggested that they ride and waste a few days as far from Monmouth as the hours would allow. Laurens was not so modest to not feel pride in his chest when Lafayette produced a small, weak smile and agreed.

 

\--Loop 37--

 

He thought they would have discovered the majority of the secrets of the lands around Monmouth, by Laurens still had a delightful little place up his sleeve. His friend had drawn him down an old lane-- long recovered by nature -- to an abandoned farm set on the side of a low bearing river. Frustratingly, Laurens had refused to say anything further than a hint of a surprise, but now Lafayette was pleased he had not revealed details of this lost Eden.

The house – more of a cottage – was set further inland than the barn. Like the lane, the wilderness had reclaimed it: the shingles of the roof had fallen inwards in parts and vines covered most of the structure, digging into the mortar between the stone to comfortably cling and support eruptions of white flowers which turned toward the sun.

With no one to cut the grass, wildflowers and long swaying swaths of green covered the grounds. They parted like water as Laurens lead on his mare in front, springing back into place once the intruders had passed. It was beautiful, and it achingly reminded Gilbert of home, even if the sun beat down far more intensely. If he closed his eyes he could almost hear peasants calling their cattle and driving them through the fields. Perhaps too, the sound of bells ringing from a church as ancient as his family.

Lafayette slid from his saddle with a small gasp of wonder as Laurens led him to the barn and a dock set into the river, where the treeline had been parted with human hands. Cattails and lilies had taken their places, pushing up amongst the corpse-like stumps.

“How did you find this place?” Lafayette asked with awe.

Laurens glanced at him over his shoulder, a smile playing on his lips. “I just wandered until I found the lane and became curious. Is it pleasing?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Then I’m glad,” he replied as he looped his reins over his mare’s head and freed her bit. Lafayette moved to do the same. There was no reason their horses could not enjoy the scenery as well. He pet Poivre’s nose and set the beast to wander before following Laurens along the rickety boardwalk. Together they slipped off their boots and stockings, laying them out in vain hope the high sun would relieve some of the sweat and odour from the cotton.

The water was blessedly cool on Lafayette’s toes and he swished his foot, humming contently in his seat. Laurens was more subdued in his spot beside him, but he could see his friend had relaxed somewhat too, watching the river as it cut a path around his bare legs. Lafayette was tempted to speak, but the silence was a little too comfortable to break, so he let it be and enjoyed the mottled shade the trees painted on them both; sheltering the young men from an overbearing sun.

Laurens had shifted to lean back on his elbows when he spoke, staring up at the clouds that drifted lazily overhead. It was not yet the overcast that would drown the sky in pewter, but it would come, like it always did. “How are you feeling?”

An awfully simple question. Yet, it was one with an awfully complex answer; if there was one to be had at all. Lafayette could simply say ‘I don’t know,’ and that may as well be the truth. But it was unsatisfying, and far less that Laurens deserved.

His heart had eased its tension the past few loops. A small victory. Laurens’ morsel of information which he had kind-heartedly supplied upon his departure had ruined what little togetherness Gilbert had held onto. It had been cruel of George to say that as he lay dying. A kinder man would have told him far sooner in a far more agreeable setting. But he had, hadn’t he? George was a man of few words, and in his heart, Lafayette already knew how the older man regarded him. Perhaps the crueller thing was the break in character that allowed Washington to speak his mind in desperation. It was a desperation that Lafayette never wanted the man to have again.

Should he perhaps speak to Laurens of how harrowing the wait had been? Or rather the fear that twisted in his belly in the morning light? Too afraid to raise himself to search for the letter on his desk, but equally afraid to stay under the abrasive blanket, choking him in the mounting heat. It was not courage that made him throw it off, but rather it was fear of fear which bit at his legs, and hounded him the few steps needed to reveal the hand fate had played.

But it had been there: that little folded envelope, with its black ink loops and curling edges, exacerbated in the stifling humidity. And Lafayette had slumped to the floor on his derrière, breathing sharply in reprieve, his knees pulled tightly to his chest.

Maybe he should tell Laurens of his insistence in following the General around like the man was a mother goose, and he, her gosling; frantic not to be caught away and unawares. But his friend knew that already. He had looked at Lafayette with sad, understanding eyes, and had not said anything that would be cause for embarrassment for the Frenchman. He had just wanted to be near his General. To make sure that he would not blink and suddenly realise it had all been a farce and the man still bore his shroud in the depths of the Monmouth courthouse. But it hadn’t. George was alive the next day. And the next. And the next. And if Lafayette wanted to cry, then it was out of pure happiness and relief.

Death, Lafayette found, stung and shred and tore, but life eased and balmed. Life righted terrible wrongs. Shame it was then, that death still cut so deep.

“Gilbert?”

“Alright, I-I think,” he said, finally. “I suppose. I am feeling better.”

Laurens did not seem convinced from the way he looked Lafayette up and down.

“John, I am feeling better,” Lafayette insisted, picking at a buttonhole on the side of his breeches. “Our General is alive, and I am happy for this.”

“Even as you needed reminding?” Laurens asked, raising an eyebrow. His words were soft, and not as unkind as they appeared. He was being gentle with his friend, as ever. Lafayette appreciated it, though at the same time, he found he wished Laurens would not treat him like porcelain. He did not treat Hamilton so, so neither should he treat his other friends as such. Lafayette was not weak.

The flare of anger died quickly when Laurens continued to gaze at him, so damningly patient.

Yes, he had followed Washington around. Yes, he had done so for days. He needed surety, and he needed it to not happen again.

“I just... wanted to be certain. You have done the same, haven’t you? When people have died?”

A frown suddenly marred his friend’s face.

“Who said people have died?” Laurens replied sharply.

“Oh. I simply assumed. You are just…” Lafayette struggled to find the words. “Taking this better than I am.”

A tension was visible in Laurens’ shoulders, and he turned away slightly, rolling his jaw. _Oh no._ He had said something wrong. Lafayette internally admonished himself. How careless he was. Clumsy in manner and clumsy in words; both had lead him into humiliating situations before. He should not have assumed Laurens’ feelings on the matter. Even worse, he had barely considered them at all; much too caught up in his own turmoil. Of course Laurens would be hurt at the death of his General, especially since he had been the one beside him when he passed. He had been the one to hear those words. Lafayette internally kicked himself again. How selfish. _Je suis un sot absolu_. The sneers at Court had been right.

They fell into silence again. But this time it was stained with an awkwardness that had not settled between them since they had first met. Lafayette felt blatantly uncomfortable, but he did not say anything out of fear he would make a fool of himself twice within five minutes.

Laurens saved him once again. He sat up, pushing back a strand of wheaty blonde hair that had escaped the clutches of his queue. With a sigh, the tension deflated from his shoulders and he looked out across the river to the ducks fiddling with their nests in the reeds.

“Do you miss France?”

The question startled Lafayette, as out of the blue as it was. Save for their approach to their little Eden, thoughts of France had come sparingly. No, that was not quite right. He had purposely avoided thinking too deeply of his home and all the baggage his mind had carried with him on the ship. His letters to Adrienne and her returns were the only tangible links he held to his homeland. Whatever other letters he had sent across the sea had been wisps in the wind; quickly written and quickly forgotten.

But if he cast his mind to the land, and if he cast his mind to the few souls that mattered, then yes, Gilbert supposed he did miss France. He missed the halls of his house, he missed the cultured gardens and the wilderness beyond, yet most of all:

“I miss my family,” he replied, now quite solemn.

“Not the Court?”

Lafayette let out a snort. “No, I cannot say I miss the Court. They… do not think kindly of me as of late.”

Laurens perked up, eyes curious, but he was as careful and guarded as ever. _Be fierce with me, my friend,_ Lafayette thought. Laurens’ prodding did not hurt. He trusted the man far too much.

“May I ask why?” The man said, his curiosity getting the better of him.

Lafayette sighed. “You must know the King wished for my arrest for traveling to America.”

“I had heard, and I think him a fool for it, if you’ll forgive that slight. But…”

“You are asking more deeply than that,” Lafayette finished for him. “You want to know why I came in the first place.”

Laurens hummed, a deep and warming sound. “Only if you want me to know.”

Lafayette picked at his buttonhole again, becoming embarrassed despite himself. “I made a fool of myself in front of the Queen a few years ago. I… am not a great dancer. I stumbled, and she laughed.” He grimaced. “Everyone laughed.”

“So… you came to America because of a misstep?”

Gilbert shook his head. “You do not understand. The Court lives off politics and ridicule. Many have risen and fallen out of favour because of simple things like a distasteful joke or indelicate wit. For what I did, I should have never shown my face at Versailles again. But my family is présenté and we are part of the noblesse de cour. We matter. They cannot push us out so easily. So they ridicule me, for it is all they can do. They ridicule my wife. No matter how important our families are.”

He remembered how his father-in-law had raged and raved behind the doors of their house. _They cannot treat us this way,_ he had said. _This is not how it is done._ Gilbert’s uncle had said something in the same vein as they had walked the gardens of the palace together and watched Apollo’s fountain display its grandeur. _We are not frogs,_ he had said as his eyes traced the curve of woman in mid-transformation, bowed before the god and his mother. But Marie Antoinette and her husband did not seem fazed by the anger some of the old noble families shared. Antoinette stayed with her posse, closed and isolated, and the King said nothing against it. Even as the nobility fumbled over themselves at a chance to get close to the monarchs, desperate for favour and desperate for pensions to sustain them.

 _This is not how it is supposed to be,_ his father-in-law said. _No one has taught them the right way. They are young, selfish and small-minded._ He had been wise to keep his words low and out of hearing. They could not take his head, but the Noailles and Motiers could only stand so much tarnish before it became hard to scrub out.

Lafayette broke from his musing to look to his friend. Laurens’ face had twisted as he listened. Gilbert’s words had made something pass over the other man’s eyes, though what it was, he could not identify. After a short moment he regarded Gilbert again. Whatever was troubling him was gone as quickly as it had come, and, with a slight tilt of his head, he beckoned Lafayette to continue.

“I went to England,” Lafayette said. “And met the brother of the English king, if you can believe this. We talked of your American insurrection and I became entranced. Though I confess, my reasoning was perhaps more selfish than a sacrifice for your glorious cause. It was my own glory that I wished for. And perhaps glory for my family.”

“But the Louis was against it, back then.”

Lafayette hummed, amused. “Publically perhaps. But there were and are still many in France eager for English blood for our embarrassment in the Indian war. The King was biding his time until it was right to speak of an alliance. Anyone with eyes could see this, so I came anyway. Here, if I could fight for a just cause and prove my worth, see this through to the end, then all that has been endured might be worth it.” He sighed. “I hope.”

Yet despite possibility of disgrace, Lafayette found he felt free. Finally. Free from the little hidden hooks of the Court that caught the flesh of mindless courtiers and dragged them from their stations into debt and ridicule. Free from the eyes that followed his every step; his every move, daring him to stumble (again), to speak or act out of turn so that the whispers could make their rounds, filtered through lies so that even a word accidently spoken in the wrong tone could turn into a debasement of one’s character. That was not to say Lafayette did not find rumour and hearsay in America, but the French had made an art of it that no colony nor country could hope to compare.

“But Adrienne,” he continued, “she will have to endure the worst of it. Poor woman. A wife should not have to be responsible for mistakes her husband commits.”

It was Laurens’ turn to fidget, and he did so with a few of his fingers: turning them this way and that until Lafayette heard a faint _click_ of his joints snapping. “You love your wife?” He asked airily.

“Of course,” Gilbert replied. An odd thing to ask. But then again, John seemed to be full of odd questions today. Lafayette looked to his friend once again. Laurens for all his sure confidence, now appeared hesitant; working his jaw as if he wished to say something but held himself back. Or perhaps needed an opening.

“Is there a woman you have a mind to make a wife, my friend?” Lafayette questioned. Laurens had never seemed much interested in the occasional lady that passed through camp, far too focused on his duties to the army. Even at the dinner parties the Family had been invited to by well-born patriots, John had given the fairer sex a passing glance before he turned back to his fellows to laugh and jest. But now Laurens seemed conflicted on a topic that so rarely made a presence between them, if at all only between the two of them. Hamilton was normally the one to steer the conversation, even if Lafayette doubted at least half the conquests the man so loved to tout.

“That… would be difficult,” he said a moment later, his hands now stilled. “For I am already married.”

Lafayette almost choked on his own tongue. _What?!_ He repeated as much aloud, with the same amount of flabbergasted outcry.

“Before I joined the cause,” Laurens elaborated. “Martha Manning; she’s an Englishwoman, though she was not born in the country.”

_Oh._

That would perhaps be the reason John had failed to mention her up until this point. Lafayette did not quite know what to do with the revelation.

Laurens looked up from his hands to Lafayette startled face. He looked even more owlish with his eyes wide and blinking rapidly. _Well,_ John thought, _that could have gone worse._ Peculiarly, it felt good to admit aloud a thing he had kept from practically all save his family. Not even Hamilton knew what Lafayette now did. Laurens tasted his teeth, and wondered if the feeling would last if he continued to be forthright.

“I have a daughter, too: Frances. Though, I haven’t seen her since she was born a few years ago.”

He should have done better; should _do_ better. Ask Martha how the girl is. Anything. If he did not owe it to his wife, then he owed it to Frances. _Add it to the pile, John. It stacks high already._

That confession only made Lafayette lean back further. “Uh-h. Oh,” he choked. “Really?”

The look on the man’s face was practically comical, and despite it all, Laurens could not help barking a laugh at the sight. He reined himself in quickly, clearing his throat, though an amused smile stayed where it ought not to.

It took a few moments, but eventually Lafayette managed to compose himself, evidently deciding to take delight in John’s awkwardly given confession after the initial shock of  it. His expression mirrored Laurens’: lips upturned and his eyes were bright and pleasing. “I have daughters as well, I...” he said, but as the words left his mouth, his face dropped, and the small display of elation died, dismal and short-lived. “-- _had_ two daughters. Henriette… is gone now.” For a moment, grief coloured Lafayette as he looked to his lap, and wrung his hands. “Anastasie was born after I left for America. So I have not had the chance to see her yet, but Adrienne tells me she is healthy.”

Laurens’ heart sunk. They did not speak to one another much about their pasts or their families. It was odd, and not at all right for Gilbert to hold the look he did now. It was softer than the turmoil carved into his face upon Washington’s death. Acceptance, but a crude version of it; coloured with a quiet sadness that found its way into the curve of the his spine and the line of his flattened mouth as he watched the river flow by.

He could open his mouth; say the words it felt he had repeated a hundred times over by now, but Laurens decided against it. Instead, he squeezed Lafayette’s shoulder, only letting him go when the other man supplied a small, tight smile; his eyes displaying all the gratitude Laurens required.

Silence. Again. Though again it had changed. It was warm, not just from the heat that had found its way into the shade, but from the comfort the men shared between them. Laurens could feel more heat from where his shoulder braced against Lafayette’s. He felt… calmed.

“Do you love her?” Lafayette echoed his question, breaking the quiet this time.

Did he? Laurens already knew the answer to that. Had done so since Martha had decided she liked him and smiled shyly as she listened to him speak of the ancients and recall his favourite stories. She had been there when Kinloch had decided against the not quite nameable thing that existed between them, and Laurens had looked on her kindly for it. But even then, as now, he could not give her what she wanted; to her disappointment and to John’s own failings.

“Not in the way she wants me to,” he said at last. The answer seemed to satisfy Lafayette and he gave the smallest of nods, even if Laurens felt the old wash of disillusionment.

After a moment, Laurens could still feel Gilbert’s eyes upon him. “You would tell me, wouldn’t you, John? If things were troubling you?”

Was he more transparent that he ought to be? Laurens straightened his spine, but could not banish the spike of guilt. Shaking thoughts of Martha away, he smiled. “Of course, my friend.” He jostled Lafayette’s shoulder playfully. “Stop worrying.”

“I know, I am sorry, but you handle _everything_ so well. I wanted to be sure,” the man mused, kicking up a foot and watching the bright droplets soar before returning to the river. He turned to John, grinning, his own dark thoughts swept away. “Shall we make a plan?”


	13. Chapter 13

\--Loop 42--

 

Laurens watched as Lafayette tried in vain to steady the writing board on the pommel of his saddle. A small thing, on which he had in a tight grip, though it did little to stabilize the object as the man insisted on pressing down with the hand that wrote. If Laurens strained to listen, every few moments the Frenchman would click his tongue as the loops of ink from his fountain pen slid a little too left, or a little too right. They should have written the message before moving to the field, but Lafayette had quickly pointed out the possibility of the letter being found on their persons and the subsequent difficulty both of them would face in their attempt to explain why they had a letter to General Washington outlining an early retreat in a battle they had yet to fight.

Laurens turned his eyes to some of the lower ranking officers and their help further down the slope. Those that owned such instruments had their spy glasses out, keeping them focused on the troops that had engaged the enemy not long ago. Already men rode to and fro from the lines; passing along messages or --as Laurens had reason to suspect-- pleading for balls and cartridges from their fellows when they had been wasteful and too heavy handed on the trigger to take a clear shot.

They should be safe from prying eyes where they stood, but even writing this here and now was a risk. Lee would not be on the retreat for at least another half hour. If others were to see… well, it was easy to suspect foul play. Yet, it was a risk Laurens took without too much worry. It needed to be done.

Laurens patted Josephine's neck as she shuffled and shook out her mane. He was saddled, secure, and ready to go. Early. For that was what the plan called for.

Not overly eager to jump right in once again, the two of them had taken a few more loops to themselves. By this morning, Lafayette appeared to have a stronger handle on their predicament than he did previously. Not that Laurens had not enjoyed the reprieve either; it had been genuinely nice to spend some more time by the river, though the two of them had been sure to take some food with them in subsequent occasions. Additionally, it had allowed the both of them to go over what to say and how to appear to the others, as they tried to subtly maneuver events in their favour.

Holt, Lafayette’s loyal messenger, had been dismissed for today, told to stay back at camp, or to attend to the other Generals if he was sorely needed. Laurens would be acting in his place, and with their bid for him to ride out in time before Lee’s retreat --in attempt catch their traitorous General unawares-- it was too much of a risk to have a courier read a message he ought not. Perhaps if they were early, Laurens would not have to endure Washington’s fall once again.

A curse drew Laurens back to the Frenchman who scrambled to catch his board before it tipped to the ground, parchment and all.

“Are you alright?” Laurens asked with a snort.

“I am _fine_ ,” Lafayette muttered, his shoulders hunched indignantly.

Laurens drew Josephine to Poivre’s side, leaning over the space to catch an eyeful of what Lafayette had written.

_My Dearest General, I fear one of our own has acted out of turn..._

In the absence of powder to dry the ink, once finished, Lafayette waved the parchment to and fro in the breeze. When the wind would not settle the implacable blotches, he puffed his cheeks out and blew, looking so ridiculous that Laurens had to cover his mouth to stifle the unexpected laughter that threatened his propriety.

“I think the wind should take offence that you display more apt for its office, than it does,” Laurens pointed out, biting his bottom lip. The Frenchman paused in confusion, his cheeks ballooned and ready to send forth another great gust.

Laughter burst forth from Laurens. He puffed out his own cheeks in mockery and raised his eyebrows.

Lafayette flushed pink, mumbling something incoherent before duly folding the paper. He wrote the appropriate address in his looping script and handed the letter over, quickly putting away his utensils and righting his cuffs from where he had pushed them up his arms to save the fine wool from ruin.

“Sorry, my friend,” Laurens said, for once not really sorry at all. “I couldn’t help myself.”

Lafayette ducked his head with a smile, suddenly no longer embarrassed. “If my ridiculousness causes you joy, dear Laurens, I think my… person? Can endure it,” he replied, his accent thickening as he stumbled over his wording. “It is the small things that will help us through this, I think.”

Laurens hummed, opening his coat to tuck Lafayette’s letter inside. He could not find it in himself to disagree. He hadn’t quite understood how lonely his existence had been within this strange Predicament until Lafayette had shown him with the warmth of his company. And even if it caused Lafayette pain, selfishly, Laurens did not want to return to waging a one man war.

“I think you may be right,” he conceded. Lafayette cocked his head, his hat flopping with the sudden motion. John appreciated the pull of the man’s lips into a wide, kind smile. Leaning over, he mirrored an action that Lafayette did not remember, and squeezed the Frenchman’s hand where it rested against the pommel. Lafayette’s assurance of their friendship felt like it had occurred several lifetimes ago. For all John knew, perhaps it had. Both of them had died since that loop. Both of them had been reborn; bodies unchanged, but minds not quite the same. Something told John that his new self had been deprived; lessened, rather than improved. Experience had not Enlightened him in the way the grand _philosophes_ had promised.

Nevertheless, Lafayette spoke true. It was the small things, whether they be ridiculous, or not, that lightened the weight of the blocks of iron strapped to John’s shoulders. “We can do this,” Laurens said abruptly, feeling inflamed. He stared at Lafayette, his voice hard. “We _can_ succeed.” He wanted to believe it.

Taking John’s passion in stride, Gilbert placed his other hand on top of his friend’s. “Yes. We _can_.” With nothing more needing to be said between them, he let Laurens go, nodding east, his face set with pride.

Laurens nudged forward, face to the breeze. He looked back one last time to the man now absent of company, before gently pushing his mare on down the slope. Lafayette righted his hat and raised a hand in farewell. The ‘ _good luck,’_ remained unspoken.

It had not been an idea Laurens was entirely comfortable with, but at their prodding, they had encouraged Hamilton to leave Washington’s side in exchange for Lee’s. Even when Hamilton had asked for a reason, both he and Lafayette had refused to give one, citing a vague sort of worry, and a warning to keep an eye out for anything that would be a cause for alarm. They would need Hamilton to support the claim of a Laurens that had arrived _just_ too early to escape suspicion, but an arrival that was needed to save Washington from his demise.

Laurens sighed to himself. His boy had not been pleased at their secrecy. Hamilton never was. It was with a heavy heart that his mind harkened back to the erased conversation in their tent, never mind all that had come after. Idly, he wondered if it was a conversation fated to be repeated, as the world rewound itself over and over. How many times would Alexander demand he reveal himself? How many times would he see his face fall, his brows pull together in determination, and hear an empty promise escape his fine, pink lips. Laurens hoped that the next time they gathered close together, it would be a memory that would stick. Moments ago he had promised to end this, after all.

No one gave him an inkling of grief as he sped off alone, and Laurens rolled with the motion of the saddle, keeping the reins tightly clenched between his fingers. Lafayette’s letter weighed heavily in his breast pocket, a sheet of metal against his heart.

The landscape changed as he journeyed; an open, muddy field transformed to something that was more agreeable underfoot. Laurens approached a line of sparse trees, tangled within the confines of a rolling ditch and bank that could almost be called a gully if it was but a little deeper. The small, rolling slope separated Lafayette and Lee, running from the forest of northern British lines to the forest claimed by the Continentals in the south. An odd feature, it struck Laurens as a pursuit of laziness by those who had wished to reclaim only so much land before giving up.

He tugged on Josephine, slowing the mare so she did not attempt an audacious jump that would land her in the middle of the ditch, to the detriment of her fetlocks and the man in her saddle. At Laurens’ behest, she picked her way across, easily mounting the other side and winding through the scraggy trees which caught Laurens by the hair. He hissed, pulling the twigs out and attempted to tuck the errant strands back into his queue. By the time he returned to Washington, he would look like a frenzied bushman who had stolen an officer uniform.

Laurens slowed. He could hear the whistle of rounds once again not far ahead. Already the smoke had began to waft towards him as the breeze swept it over to swirl around Josephine’s feet, blasting her nose with its tang. She snorted and shifted as her master paused a moment at the edge of the treeline to eye the lay of the battle.

Lee’s men arranged themselves a few yards forward of Laurens’ position. He squinted at the figures. A man atop a horse wheeled around near the front lines, gesturing with a hand back toward the forest that lay behind him. Some of the men needed no more encouragement. Like animals, they scrambled from their posts and sprinted for the safety of the trees. The hairs on the nape of Laurens’ neck prickled, but he ignored the feeling in favour of the display of cowardice before him.

It had begun.

A flash of blue on a brandy coloured horse caught his attention. Turning his head to the wild rider revealed it to be Hamilton, pressing his heels into Peacock’s belly to urge the horse onward. His auburn hair whipped out behind him, still perfectly braided into his queue despite his ferocity. His boy painted the picture of valiant majesty as he rode, rifle tight in his grip, his handsome face set into a mask of outrage that Laurens had felt so many times before.

Laurens nudged Josephine forward into a trot. He didn’t get far from the treeline before his sudden movement caused Alexander to whip his head around and double-take. Once he recognised the figure Laurens made, he halted his journey; pulling on Peacock’s reins with his free hand, hard enough that the stallion threw his head and slipped forward in the mud. Unrelenting, Alexander tugged him away from the path he had set upon with so much ire, and urged him towards Laurens.

“Laurens!” Hamilton shouted as he approached, tucking his Long rifle under his arm. Even when greeting his friend, he could not keep the anger out of his voice. “Lee is retreating. Retreating! I cannot believe this! This is, this is--” he uncharacteristically struggled to find his words. “This is atrocious! This is treason! What on God’s green earth does the man think he’s doing? I cannot fathom it.”

Laurens let his own familiar rage spike in his chest at Alexander’s words. _I know, my dear boy. Believe me, I know._ “Nor can I, Hamilton. We must return to Washington immediately.” He patted his breast pocket. “I ask that you follow my lead, and back up what I say with what you have seen. Trust me with this. The Marquis and I had suspicion that the General would attempt something, and now we have been proven correct.”

Alexander’s eyebrows shot up as realisation quickly sank in. “You _knew? This_ is what you would not speak to me of, yet warned me to look out for? This? I don’t--” He frowned. “Yes, you’re… far too early. The order to retreat was only sent out a minute ago. But--” He quickly turned his renewed ire on Laurens, “You could have told me!”

Laurens attempted to placate him with a hand. “I know, Alex but please _listen_ ,” he replied. Perhaps he ought not to use a pet name at a time like this, but he hoped it would give the man enough pause to not think Laurens’ motive was inherently insulting. “I will tell you _everything._ I swear on my life, and the grave of my mother. But now we must _go_.” _Washington’s life depends on it._

His dear Hamilton, as stubborn as he was, did not look convinced. Laurens opened his mouth to speak further, but before he could, a bullet whistled so close to his nose, the air burned his skin. He reared back in shock, Hamilton becoming his mirror image as his face twisted in fear. Josephine screeched, stumbling to back away from their unknown attackers.

_Who?!_

Laurens twisted in his saddle, searching the trees of the ditch and bank behind them, and northward as it stretched along to the British held forest. His heart pounding, at first he missed them, their emerald coats camouflaged amongst the greenery, yet there was no missing the flurry of rifles pointed straight at them once Laurens caught sight. Nor was there denying the officer that stood at their flank, the bright, golden epaulettes of a Major shining against his rich, red coat.

“ _Go!_ ” Laurens cried out. Alexander didn’t need to be told twice. He wrestled to turn Peacock around, forcing the horse to the side as Laurens spurred Josephine past him. Laurens could hear multiple blasts underneath the sound of their horses’ hooves trampling the ground, flinging up smoke and mud.

“ _Faster!”_ Laurens heard Alexander yell out as more blasts sounded. The cutting of a whip came next, and Laurens considered taking out his own, the thundering in his throat not helped by the swirling miasma that had captured he and Alexander in their retreat.

 _Where in God’s name did they come from?_ Laurens wondered. The British had appeared like phantoms; forest spirits conjured up on a whim. Laurens had not even heard them. _Queen’s Rangers,_ his mind supplied with disgust. Perhaps there was a reason he hadn’t. He shook them from his mind. He could wonder about their kind later, but now they needed to go, their mission to reach Washington more dire than ever.

Laurens pressed an arm against the lower half of his face as he rode through the chaos. The cannon smoke wafted as thick as fog in these parts, strong enough to choke on it. With a cough he waved a hand in front of his face, trying to at least breathe before the haze was swept past and over him. Josephine’s hooves beat a steady rhythm that was almost relaxing in its tempo.

_Wait._

Josephine’s hooves beat a rhythm _alone._

Laurens jerked on his reins, panic surging in his chest. His mare whinnied as she was forced to stop cruelly in her attempt to get away.  Laurens ignored her, spinning wildly. Behind them stretched the churned field— flecked with sprigs of green and pockmarked with bodies, indifferent from the state of the land in every direction. Yet, it was just as Laurens feared.

Suddenly, he was alone.

“Hamilton?”

Only the distant cries and gunshots answered him.

“ _Alexander?!”_

His shout returned nothing but emptiness.

Kicking Josephine’s side in a way that was sure to be painful for the mare, he retraced his steps with an air of mania. _Please no, please God no. Just let him be lost in the smoke._ Josephine stumbled and slipped in the patches of open mud, having just as much trouble as he to see ahead. He kept his thighs tight against her belly, his spine ramrod straight; poised to discover any hint of Alexander through the smoke. Every body he passed, he checked. Despite recognising none, it did not make Laurens feel better, nor did it subdue the panic electrifying his system.

Eventually a dark form emerged in the distance, frozen in obscurity. John urged his mount on, not caring if he was jarred with enough force to almost throw him from the saddle.

Coming closer to the shape revealed it to be Peacock, standing without cause, and without a man on his back.

John’s heart beat wildly as he dismounted and attempted to run to the abandoned horse. He slipped in the slick before he could, falling painfully to his knees. _Damn it!_ Throwing out a hand kept him from crashing face-first into the muck, though a noise wrenched from his throat as his wrist throbbed with a needle sharp pain. Nevermind. He had to keep going. Gritting his teeth to the ache, he pushed himself to his feet and onward. _Alex, please, oh please be alright._ He had to keep going.

Peacock shuffled nervously back from the form on the ground as Laurens staggered over to him.

“ _No!”_

Alexander lay on his side, half his face pressed to the mud, one of his thin arms wrapped around his belly which was stained an awful, and terrible red. They had shot him. The British hidden amongst the northern trees had hit him as they passed, and John hadn’t even noticed. He hadn’t even thought to notice. How could he fail to notice? He had heard the blasts, how could he not suspect?

He stumbled forward, boots now more brown than black, and lunged the rest of the way to Alexander’s side. The injured man didn’t react at all to John’s presence.

“Alex!” John cried, trying to turn the man’s body as gently as he was able. His dirtied hand met no resistance, and a sigh escaped Alexander has he was rolled onto his back. With his entire front revealed, it only painted a more gruesome tableau: the wool had torn in multiple places which festered along his side. And his eyes, God in heaven above, his eyes were open, but it was not in way John had hoped. They were still; as glassy as a serene Swiss lake. The man’s lips were painted scarlet, and with his pale face he almost looked as if he could have a place within a Kingly court, if not for the way the blood clung in the grooves of his teeth.

John gingerly touched Alexander’s cheek, absentmindedly tucking a stray curl behind his ear. There could still be a chance, couldn’t there? “Alex, look at me,” he begged. No response. John tried again, “Alex, _I beg you. Look at me.”_

Nothing.

John kissed him. Alexander’s eyelashes were feathery soft on his cheek, and John breathed in deeply. Paper, and wheat, and the copper tang of blood. He kissed him again, trying desperately to draw any response from the man that lay prone. There was a wetness on Alexander’s face, but it wasn’t of his own making. John slammed his fist into the ground beside Alexander’s head, wanting to roar. Yet the sudden rage wilted instantly, and he pressed his face against his friend’s. Laurens choked. No, not just his friend.

 _I love you_ , he thought pleadingly against Alexander’s softly sun-freckled and rapidly cooling cheek. He couldn’t bring himself to feel shame for that fact. It was the truth. He did love Alexander; deeply, and wholeheartedly. It had always been his own stubbornness, his own denial, his own subterfuge that had kept him from admitting it. ‘Attraction’; what an idiotic conclusion. It wasn’t just simple attraction. It had never been simple attraction. Hamilton was no Kinloch. Not to John.

“I think I’ve always loved you, my dear,” John whispered to him, straining to listen for shallow breaths. He had to listen closely, for they would be so small and soft that they almost wouldn’t be there at all.

What a damn fool he was to only realise it now. No. It had never been simple urge or attraction. Alexander was beautiful, but that was not what drew John to him. He could have been physically flawed to a fault, and John knew he would still fall in love with his fire, his conviction, his ambience, his ambition, and kindness.  All the things that made Alexander, Alexander.

“So that is why you can’t go,” he urged.  “I cannot wake up tomorrow and not find you there. I love you, and it’s taken me this long to know it and I am sorry. I am a weak man, Alex. What am I to do if you’re not there?” John willed himself to still feel warmth from Alexander’s cheek. “ _Don’t go.”_

The man under him did not respond. The sky above the smoke must be as beautiful as John remembered, for Alexander refused to look away.

Was this the way it was always going to be? One step forward, two steps back? One death after the other, never quite knowing when they would stop and the world would right itself?

The drumbeat started to thunder in his head, and the chasm yawned below him. He pushed everything away, but Laurens was weak. The demons had suddenly started to beat and claw at their cage, screeching something terrible. He pushed again, urgently now, pushing it down, down, down. But Despair, the ugly devil at his back, slipped its noose, and its fingers, icy and cold, and so very familiar dug into the nape of his neck. Laurens shuddered, yet did not have the strength to stop it.

He could not allow the Continentals their victory. He _could not_ allow it. Not like this. Laurens shifted. A cartridge packet weighed heavily in his pocket.

Now faint, a memory stilled the hand that crept to his side. _If Lafayette lives, and you die, Alexander will still be dead._ The creatures in their cage pounded and clawed, raging against their cracking prison now that the scent of blood was in the air to excite them. John closed his eyes.

Alexander was dead. Under him at this very moment was a cooling body that would only grow colder with each passing minute. He was dead. Like Lafayette had been; bloody stump of a leg, and warm, brown eyes unseeing. He was dead. Like Washington had been; bullet wound in his chest, and desperate last words on his lips. He was dead. John felt like he was drowning.

When John receded underneath the waves in his mind, he heard it: the whispering, poisonous voice that had come with the lack of feeling at Washington’s demise. And then the pain begun to ease, and the nothingness came. The assurances were sweet in their sensibilities, and like pestilence, it began to corrupt everything it touched.

And John was _terrified_.

He was terrified, even as a secondary calmness started to spread. It relaxed him, hushed him like a child and told him there was no point in feeling. Why feel anything in these deaths? He did not feel anything for his own deaths, so why should he feel anything for the deaths of others? They would be erased. It would all be erased.

It was illogical. And that was terrifying. And that was not who Laurens could stand to be.

This was Alexander. What kind of atrocity would he become if he could not feel the pain of loss for Alexander? John could concede to his apathy for anyone, for anything, but not Alexander. Anyone but him. Shutting up his little box had begun to warp his weakened frame, and the good --what little of it John had-- was leaking out into the world until there was nothing left. What a creature he had became. What a monstrous brute. He could no longer look at his own hands, fearing they would be blackened, spiny claws.

He couldn’t do this. Not anymore. He would fix this. He had to.

John ripped his little Pandora’s box open, and he felt, and felt, and _felt_. All the monstrosities poured out, finally unhindered. He let himself feel them, and did not mind as they swallowed him whole.

He hadn’t felt like this in a long time. Such a _long time._ But was it? Wasn’t it only a few years ago in a sallow London street? Those memories were already so muddied. He wasn’t sure they were even real. But nevertheless, it was with a pitiful breed of clarity that John promised himself he would end this.

 _No more_.

There was something at the bottom of it all, in his little box. John didn’t know quite what it was, but as his demons overcame him, he grasped it and held on; reminded of old books and a country field.

 


End file.
